Vienna-based architectural studio Smartvoll peered into an empty industrial building that once housed soldiers and a tank station and saw something wholly unexpected. Within this simple oblong building, with its weathered bricks and hard concrete floors recalling decades long past, the architects envisioned a futuristic open-plan loft. They submitted their proposal to an international contest that called for an adaptation of the space into a luxurious residence within the larger Panzerhalle complex and won, and it’s not hard to see why.

At the epicenter of the new space is a minimalist kitchen contained within a 23-foot-long block, which itself is flanked by a pair of sweeping concrete staircases. Made of black lava stone, this monumental cabinet features a planting area for herbs and individual spaces for food preparation, cooking, and dining. A table pulls out of one end on demand. Above it soar the wing-like platforms of the gallery level, which follow the contours of the building and offer access to more private spaces.

The dramatic staircases split off in three directions. Smartvoll explains that they shouldn’t be seen as merely functional ways of accessing various levels of the home, but rather “as an electric spatial experience.”

“The stairs are an architecture within the architecture,” they continue. “Concreted in-house, the engineering is being exhausted in all respects. Tender objects with minimal dimensions but tremendous spatial impact. Something that does not allow for competition: besides the concrete, only subtle, semi-transparent materials are being used, such as Profilit to separate the guest area and curtains for the bedroom…Every other piece of furniture seems to be integrated into the construction. An unalterable picture [that] celebrates only free space.”

Everything about the loft seems to float. The staircase hovers above the kitchen, creating a lightweight roof that belies its own solidity. The curtains that delineate the bedrooms waft in the breeze. A bookcase comes out of the brick wall near the back of the home and hangs down into the ground floor below. Even the shower feels weightless, having been projected into the main space as an open glass box. Nothing about the Loft Panzerhalle is meant for the shy and reserved. Its boldness is what sets it apart from top to bottom.

“At the lower level, the room is connected to two balconies. However, even this façade aligns itself with the carriers of the concrete sculpture in the slant; the balconies look like additional alcoves of the overall concept. They feature a contemplative zen garden, including a grassy knoll, a jasmine tree, and a classic [relaxation] terrace.”

These outdoor spaces offer views of the rest of the Panzerhalle complex, including a market space that was also renovated by Smartvoll and several restaurants, salons, event spaces, and a co-working facility, all of which are unified by their buildings’ original brick facades.

The post Former Army Barracks Transformed Into an Extraordinary Modern Loft Apartment first appeared on Dornob.

But the Swedish company realizes that people in big cities want to stop by, grab what they need, and head home on the bus or subway, so they’ve recently started experimenting with a few new options. In 2019, they opened a few small, boutique-style stores in New York, London, and Paris that allowed customers to see and feel the goods and order them for delivery, but that still didn’t seem to satisfy the desire to actually shop.

Now, in a first for the retailer, a new urban store in Vienna will offer full service right by the Westbahnhof train station. There’s just one catch: there’s absolutely zero parking. That’s kind of the whole point. Designed by Querkraft Architekten, the new seven-story store consists of a bunch of airy, open modular boxes stacked on top of each other, with greenery poking out in every direction. It’s directly marketed to people who will be arriving on foot, bicycle, or public transit.

“The concept focuses on the current mega trends and takes into account the dramatically changed shopping behavior, as well as a new form of mobility without a car,” reads an official company statement. “Customers have little time and appreciate convenience and comfort. This is clearly noticeable in the furnishing [sector]: more and more customers no longer even think about carrying their purchases home themselves. You can have them delivered.”

In fact, the store will deliver large purchases that are difficult to transport within a maximum of 24 hours, so customers will still get the stuff they need fast, albeit (presumably) at an upcharge. But just as much as it will be a traditional retail store, the urban Ikea Vienna location also aims to be a local destination. The large green roof and terraces will offer plenty of spots from which to gaze out at the city, while the store itself will have the usual IKEA cafeteria and concessions.

Querkraft Architekten says they designed the store around two pillars: consumer convenience and sustainability. The large volume of trees on the facade are part of this strategy, implanted in hopes of influencing the local microclimate. The company adds that: “Vegetation is the most important measure in the city of Vienna’s urban heat island strategy. Trailing plants and moss facade elements are further factors which have a cooling and humidifying effect like the trees.”

Construction started on January 7th, 2020, and it’s expected to be complete sometime in 2021. Once open, it’ll be interesting to see how the public reacts to the new setup. Reception is expected to be positive in Vienna, which already has a well-developed and heavily utilized public transit network in place, but can you imagine how different it might be in the United States, where people feel entitled to drive and park personal vehicles wherever they want?

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Local architectural practice noa* adds a new “theatrical spa” to that list with the Mohr Life Resort’s new wellness area. Leveraging “the incredible nature at the heart of Tirol,” the architects aimed to design a “stirring” contemporary building offering a fresh take on the traditional spa. Concrete may not seem like an obvious choice for a structure that wants, more than anything, to be in dialogue with the physicality, culture, and history of its natural surroundings, but the trick is in the balance.

The architects say of the project: “In October 2018, the Mohr Life Resort’s new wellness area was inaugurated in Lermoos, one of the oldest skiing areas in Tirol just an 80-kilometer drive from Innsbruck. The Hotel itself is steeped in history, a household name for anyone visiting the skiing carousel in the northern Alps in Tirol. The new glass and cement structure was built organically on a gentle slope located below the hotel. It features a unique view across the spacious Ehrwalder Becken valley peppered with old farmhouses and barns; what’s more, the imposing 3,000 metres of the Zugspitze mountain — which represents a geographical border between Austria and Germany — overlooks the entire valley.”

Lead architect Christian Rottensteiner adds that the “majestic and powerful presence of the mountain itself” serves as the anchor of the concept, and by extension is the project’s “protagonist.” The building feels just as solid as the peaks that surround it, yet permeable at the same time, its reflective glass surface echoing the rocks and trees outside as well as the powerful presence of the Zugspitze, the highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountains at 2,962 meters (about 9,718 feet) above sea level.

“The glass and cement structure extends horizontally to create an artificial rib, mirrored by the dry stone walls running along its side. The project was specifically designed considering the gently sloping terrain and develops across two levels: this creates a height difference [that allows] for the creation of the swimming pool. A sober and light building in the landscape obtained by the aggregation of simple shapes: glass cubes placed across the two levels create the structural grid for the edifice’s skeleton.”

Inside, the spa acts as a counterpoint to that grid, offering soft, organic surfaces that welcome tactile interaction. The ground floor features a private lounge, lobby, bar, spa and scenic sauna, mini bistro, private relaxation booths, and a gorgeous spiral staircase leading to stepped relaxation areas designed to look like theater stages with views across the mountain.

Set adjacent to one of Tirol’s oldest skiing areas, the Mohr Life Resort beckons weary adventurers with a place to rest and recuperate while seeing the stunning local scenery from a new viewpoint. Learn more or book your stay at the official Mohr Life Resort website.

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Anderson and Malouf’s work marks the third installment in this series, following Ed Ruscha’s 2012 exhibition “The Ancients Stole All Our Great Ideas” and Edmund de Waal’s 2016 “During the Night.” The couple took two years to create their exhibition, examining more than four million individual objects spanning a period of 5,000 years before selecting the best 423 for public display.

Since its debut, “Spitzmaus Mummy” has been hailed for its “quirky presentation of affectionate misfits” and focus on all thing curious and weird. It also marks the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s largest walkthrough exhibition to date. “We thought it was going to be easy, [but] of course, we were wrong. But we didn’t expect to be so wrong for so long,” confessed Anderson. He went on to explain that the project not only proved to be a challenge for the couple, but also for the museum’s staff, who personally assisted in the selection and arrangement of the featured artifacts (some of which had never been seen before).

Throwing traditional art history rules out the window, the couple wanted to highlight overlooked items that perhaps wouldn’t typically be considered as important as some of the more “regular” objects found in the museum — an unsurprising vision coming from a director who’s perhaps most famous for his unique take on aesthetics.

Jasper Sharp, the museum’s curator of contemporary and modern art, invited the pair to take part in the project after an unexpected encounter through a mutual friend. Though neither member of the couple is per se an artist, they are both regular visitors to the museum, and given their creative backgrounds, it only made sense to make them most of their ingenuity.

Background

Anderson was born in Texas and today is beloved for his theatrical editorials, colorful movie sets, and quirky films including The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Royal Tenenbaums. Malouf was born in Beirut, Lebanon and grew up in London. She has worked in international film, theater, and fashion as both a designer and an illustrator, and in 2015 she published her first novel The Trilogy of Two.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum first devised of the curatorial project in an effort to make up for the fact that they would no longer updating their collection of artifacts. Hoping to keep the exhibitions feeling fresh and new, they continue to enlist the aid of well-known creatives from diverse spheres of influence.

“Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and Other Treasures” is on display until April 28th, 2019, with tickets going for €30 per person. Once there, visitors can also elect to purchase an audio guide, through which they’ll be guided the exhibition by the voices of both featured artists and actor Jason Schwartzman.

The post Wes Anderson Curates New Exhibition at Acclaimed Austrian Museum first appeared on Dornob.

Perched on a gently sloping hillside, this small artist’s studio bends in the middle to frame the sky on the backside rather than dead-ending in the earth. Architect Christian Tonko envisions the structure, which is located in Bregenz, Austria, as a ‘visual device’ that captures a very specific view of the surroundings for the occupants while also letting in direct sunlight from the southeast.

“On an underlying conceptual level the design is inspired by an ancient optical device – the camera lucida,” says the firm. “On the one hand it is very literally a bright chamber – constructed to achieve good light conditions which can be modulated to desired levels. At the same time the studio itself acts as an optical framing device similar to the original function of the camera lucida as a drawing aid.”

The tilted glazing on the uppermost portion of the studio floods the interior with natural light, providing ideal conditions for the working artist in residence to create and display bronze sculptures. Exterior screens make it easy to adjust the amount of light and heat that comes in, blocking the sun if desired.

Broken down to its most basic form, the studio is essentially a box with a skylight, creased down the middle so part of it matches the angle of the hill. Though the setting is pastoral, the studio is industrial in character, with a raw concrete interior and facade panels made of weathering steel.

“This small studio for drawing, painting and sculpture acts as a visual device itself by bidirectionally framing its surroundings. To the southeast a great amount of daylight enters through tilted glazing. To block direct sun if desired and to enable the modulation of light and climatic conditions exterior screens are deployed. To the northwest a system of frames is installed which enable bronze sculptures to be suspended in front of the glass and in direct sight of the working artist. In that spot the bronze sculptures receive their natural patina while being staged as a motive of reflection and confrontation for the artist.”

“The building features two separate levels which serve different functions. The upper level is designed to be a workplace where most of the sketches and small water colours are done while on the lower level medium sized canvases and small sculptures will be produced. The semi-industrial character of the project stems from the reference to the typology of the shed roof factory. Here this typology is being reduced to its simplest case – a single box with a single skylight. The use of raw and untreated materials contributes to the character of a workshop. The facade panels are made from weathering steel while the interior surfaces are made from raw concrete, raw steel and untreated oak. “

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Looking to the future, most experts agree that 70 percent of people will be living in cities (as opposed to rural or suburban settings) by 2050. Caramel Architects has designed an urban home called the CJ-5 House; the prototype in Vienna provides the comforts and conveniences of any modern urban home, but takes up very little space.

The narrow design of this house is meant to allow more homes to fit in a smaller area, thus preserving precious scarce city living space. One of the methods used to achieve this is building the kitchen and dining area into the stairs; this tiered cooking and eating area takes up less floor space than a conventional kitchen and dining room and also adds an interesting visual element to the home. At the back of the ground level, a door leads to the attached garage.

The three-level home is not as dreary and cramped as you might expect from a home that aims to minimize its footprint. The living space climbs upward, utilizing negative space and areas that would otherwise be wasted to add to the home’s livable area. A long terrace leading out from the master bedroom looks out over the open courtyard (with recessed seating and a hot tub) at ground level. Huge windows and a skylight flood the home with natural light, a time-tested trick that makes a small space seem much larger than it really is.

The prototype home has a single bedroom and an additional space that can also be used as a second bedroom. The exterior of the home is wrapped in concrete and features floor-to-ceiling windows that open up to allow for ample sunlight or close for maximum privacy. Concrete, glass, and oak flooring throughout the home create a sense of cohesion that is not interrupted by the negative space created by the central courtyard.

Although it is built for space maximization, there is no shortage of livability. A cinema room/living room is a perfect space for gathering and relaxing indoors, and the attached garage can alternatively be used as a studio or workspace. The home is meant to be a study in space saving that can be replicated anywhere and in large numbers. As more of us pull inward into the cities and have to deal with population density, the CJ-5 house can be implemented en masse to form entire neighborhoods of tall, narrow, modern homes.

The post Narrow Home Could Ease Urban Crowding first appeared on Dornob.

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What looks like a cabin turned on its side, partially lifted off the ground with steel stilts, has landed beside a traditional farmhouse in an Austrian field. Urlaubs Architektur has created the effect of a foreign object that nevertheless speaks the vernacular of its surroundings, blending in quite well in its beautiful mountain setting.

Whether it was brought in by aliens or dropped during a tornado, Wizard of Oz-style, ‘UFOgel‘ is a visually interesting addition to the adjacent traditional home. Due to the variations in topography, the miniature modern cabin design appears to be set at an odd angle in comparison to the farmhouse.

Created as a holiday house, the cabin contains its own kitchen, bathroom, a dining area capable of accommodating eight guests, and a loft space with room for four. The interior is clad in warm timber for a welcoming feel that invokes the classic architectural typologies of ski chalets in the Alps.

The double height, curved ceiling, large windows and creative built-in furniture make the space feel a lot larger than its 45 square meters, lifting a lounge space into the angular glassed bump-out above the banquette.

“A strange object has landed next to an old farmhouse in the East Tyrolian village Nussdorf,” say the architects. “Floating on stilts over the hill, this exceptional holiday house looks like a blend of a UFO and a bird. It has accordingly been named ‘Ufogel’ (a combination of the words UFO and Vogel which in German means bird). Inside the wooden body – which is covered with traditional shingles – feels like a cosy nest and offers both security and a sense of openness. The scent of wood flows through the room and the panoramic window makes you feel like you’re outside.”

“The building with a floor area of 45 sqm is a real space saver: On the ground floor is the kitchen with a large dining area for up to 8 people. In the half-floor you find a lounging area overlooking the East Tyrolean mountains. A few steps higher, underneath its domed roof, is the sleeping area which can accommodate up to four people, and a bathroom where you can shower with views of the mountains.”

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From conception through construction to occupation, tree houses are unusually intentional spaces. They require defying convention, not to mention gravity. They are the stuff of childhood dreams … made real. A cliff treehouse overlooking the Alps, anyone?

It is no different for this structure by Baumraum, a well known for building contemporary-but-context-sensitive tree houses in Germany and beyond.

Built for a client and his grandson, the project strove for simplicity – a few built-in furnishings for housing essentials and pillows for comfort on the interior, and unpainted (though weather-sealed) wood elements all around.

Overlooking a picturesque Austrian down in the foreground, but capturing scenic panoramas of sea and mountains beyond, each aspect of its siting and planning reflects a careful attention the natural wonders around the building.

Stepping in sequence, one comes upon a clearing revealing some of the views below, walks up a pair of mid-level terraces, then wraps around to enter the narrow outward-pointing cabin at the top from behind.

Inside, gorgeous views are framed via panoramic slots along the long side wall, a skylight captures a slice of the heavens above and a picture-frame window, tilted down toward the ground, takes in the local sights.

Feeling inspired? Baumraum will design a custom treehouse just for you. It starts with a phone call to discuss your project, and then they’ll draw up a concept and preliminary design. Depending on where you live, you can either work directly with them to build it or hire builders in your area.

“A treehouse! A promise of adventure for the kids, a retreat for the adults, a romantic hideaway close to nature. These special little dwellings installed up among the trees fire our imagination and rouse our curiosity, bringing back childhood memories, and with them the desire to climb up and enter a magic world amongst the foliage. To be spellbound again, to witness the different sights and sounds up there by day and night and throughout the seasons. To play up there, to work undisturbed, to relax, to daydream…”

The post Cliff Treehouse by Baumraum Hangs Over the Edge of the Alps first appeared on Dornob.