Archeology Museum of Vitoria| Francisco Mangado

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, image courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Museum of Archeology in Vitoria is a competition-winning project designed by Spanish architect Francisco Mangado.

We like to think of an archaeology museum as a compact jewel box concealing the treasure that history has entrusted to us piece by piece. But not any kind of history, or at least not the scientific history of experts, which does not always leave room for imagination and almost always exhausts itself.

Francisco Mangado

+ Project description courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, sketch courtesy of Francisco Mangado

We like to think of an archaeology museum as a compact jewel box concealing the treasure that history has entrusted to us piece by piece. But not any kind of history, or at least not the scientific history of experts, which does not always leave room for imagination and almost always exhausts itself. We like to think of a history to call our own, and which never ends, because it lives on in each small or large finding, and in the eye of the observer, a whimsical eye that relies on what it wants to see, rather than on what it actually sees. For this reason, the small box, though dense and hermetic on the outside, must be suggestive and magical on the inside. The space within can be neither a mere organizing element, nor a beautiful but distant architecture; it must have the ability to evoke places and people from a tiny yet resilient fragment of ceramic which has managed to survive, and which speaks of the fragility of time.

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, image courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, image courtesy of Francisco Mangado

In the permanent exhibition halls, all horizontal surfaces are dark, the wood floors are almost black, and the continuous ceilings black. This box evokes the passage of time, concentrated in the layers of earth that little by little have formed the thick walls of history. But these dark spaces are traversed by white glazed prisms – round which the exhibition of pieces is organized – that shall draw light in from the roof at daytime, and shall be inlaid with graphics and information to describe the items, evoking the adventure of interpretation.

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, image courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, image courtesy of Francisco Mangado

The building adjoins the Palace of Bendaña, currently the museum of Naipes Fournier. Access to the building is through the same courtyard that leads to the Palace, allowing to grasp the full scope of the project. Aiming to extend the surfaces of the courtyard and thereby upgrade the access area, the proposal does not take up the whole surface available, only a narrow strip built as an appendix perpendicular to the main building and whose purpose, aside from housing auxiliary programs, is to offer a more attractive access façade than that represented by the current party walls of the neighboring constructions. Because of the slope of the terrain, the courtyard is reached through a bridge over a garden that lets light into the lower areas, which would otherwise have no natural illumination on this side.

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, image courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Functionally the volume is organized so that working areas, as well as the library and workshops, are located at ground level oriented towards the street, and with an independent access. The assembly hall and galleries for temporary exhibitions are at the public entry level that is shared with the Naipes Fournier museum, whereas the permanent exhibition halls are in the upper levels. The stairs that link the different levels define part of the façade onto the access courtyard.

The enclosing walls are in fact multilayered spaces. The façade defining the access courtyard is a grille of cast bronze pieces, a material with clear archaeological references; and in the middle, a double-layered wall of silkscreen printed glass contains the stairs which offer views of the courtyards as one steps up. In contrast, the façade fronting the lower street is more hermetic, and is made of an outer layer of opaque prefab pieces of cast bronze, with openings where needed, and an inner layer formed by a thick wall containing the display stands and systems. In this way the internal exhibition spaces are unencumbered and only traversed by translucent light prisms.

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, location plan courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, site plan courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, ground floor plan courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, first floor plan courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, third floor plan courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, section 1 courtesy of Francisco Mangado

Archeology Museum of Vitoria, section 2 courtesy of Francisco Mangado

+ Project credits / data

Project: Museum of Archeology
Location: Vitoria, Spain
Total area: 6.000 m2
Total cost: 9.000.000 €
Year of contest: 2000. First Prize Project Contest
Year of project: 2002-2003
Year of construction: 2004-2009

Exploratory Science Museum | CHN arquitetos

Exploratory Science Museum, rendering courtesy of CHN arquitetos

Exploratory Science Museum, rendering courtesy of CHN arquitetos

Exploratory Science Museum, longitudinal-section courtesy of CHN arquitetos

Bazil-based architectural firm CHN arquitetos has won the International Public Competition for the Architectural Project of the Exploratory Science Museum – Campinas, Brazil.

The surface of the facade is created from the idea of infinity: a reference to the essence of its form, recognizable from its cosmological scale to its most minimal.

CHN arquitetos

+ Project description courtesy of CHN arquitetos

Being Science the institution and main purpose of this project it becomes possible to reveal in an exceptional manner the relation between Man and Nature. And if in that relation science is concerned with understanding the existing, architecture deals with what still does not exist: it presents itself as an opportunity of expression of Man and his creation, originating a phenomenon of its own. Upon this, two absolute conditions are presented: the singular location where the project will be placed and the universal institution to be manifested.

Exploratory Science Museum, rendering courtesy of CHN arquitetos

Exploratory Science Museum, rendering courtesy of CHN arquitetos

A museum as a phenomenon, a phenomenon as landscape.

First, the place reveals us the indispensable need for the relationship between the new museum and the landscape to give rise to an event of territorial scale. The new museum should become a landmark on the horizon as a geographical fact. A museum that observes and is observed. A building that reveals itself and originates a new relation between Man and Nature, Architecture and Landscape.

Second, it is crucial that the new museum should, above all, enhance the value of the institution through its architecture, be the Science in itself. The new building should reveal this aspect, be unique and not just a common structure.

Simultaneously the new building seeks through its design, the primal metaphor between the infinite dimension of the universe and the human property of understanding reality through Science: intervention and landscape, vertical and horizontal, interior and exterior, light and shadow, cosmos and individual. Architecture as a determined act of human manifestation, a scientific instrument of learning and identity for the revelation of Science. Thus, it is unquestionable and determining the synthesis of the significance of the museum and its action in the territory.

SCHEME / MASTERPLAN

The project for the Museum of Science has in its essence the possibility of allowing a multitude of impressions and comprehensions from numerous scales and distances. The relation between the users and the new museum takes place through a process of progressively discovery and knowledge. It is this experience that generates a continuous and inseparable relationship between exterior and interior. Since the beginning the sensations and impressions caused should be able to lead a stimulated visitor inside the museum, seeking to turn his intuition in understanding. The experience of the exterior of the building should lead to a sequence of what was apprehended outside and lead to an interior even more inspiring, keeping the visitor always connected to the experience that brought him there.

Exploratory Science Museum, model image courtesy of CHN arquitetos

The masterplan strategy seeks the predominance of the landscape to which the museum adds itself to, contemplating three different scales: the surroundings, the campus and the user. The project configures itself as a north-south axis horizontal volume that accommodates itself in the topography and which highest level coincides with the existing square level, keeping intact and unleashing the seizure of the panoramic view in all its extension; this same volume becomes vertical and ends up marking the place, inaugurating a new event in the current context of the Campus of UNICAMP and the Metropolitan Region of Campinas, visible in an extensive range formed by cities, roads and equipments. However, only by the knowledge of its internal space is that the relationship between horizontal and vertical element is fully known and understood.

The new museum is contained in a single band where the program is distributed in different spaces and moments. The arrival happens through a large structural cantilever that leads visitors to the entrance square/ramp for reception and group accommodation before the main entrance to the museum: a place characterized by multiple uses and the capacity to accommodate a large number of users, by its configuration and dimensions.

From the external and internal reception areas, public accesses are configured in two levels. On the main level, which keeps the user always visually in contact with the outside, are all uses of open access (Shop, Library, Sunset Coffee and Observatory) and, after the controlling of paid area, the Temporary and Permanent Exhibition spaces. By this level the new museum also connects to the existing buildings that are part of the requested program. On the lower level is reached the Multimedia Exhibition, Auditorium and Science Ateliers. In the southern part of the site is located in the technical access directly connected to the Receiving and Storage docks, as well as controlled technical access to exhibition rooms.

Each of the spaces and activities of the program is endowed with characteristics that identify them. Multimedia Exhibition, prepared to house NanoAventura, is configured as a volume that perforates the museum and makes itself present throughout the whole internal circulation. Furthermore, it is accessed by a path that refers to the museum’s connection to the land, while the Observatory, located at the top of the vertical volume, refers directly to the Space dimension. The existing buildings (Space-Time Square and Oficina-Desafio) are incorporated through its uses and connections to the reception area of the new building, forming an upper level museology open space. The future expansions will be located in volumes in the western portion of the site in a lower level, not interfering in the main volumes, and able to be accessed separately. The management of open spaces is done by limiting controls areas of activities that can be opened independently: the top level and lower level at the Museum, Oficina-Desafio and outdoor areas, always ensuring the complete safety of the building.

Exploratory Science Museum, rendering courtesy of CHN arquitetos

MUSEOLOGY / CIRCULATION

The museum building is offered as a powerful teaching experience of the institution, seeking the essential interaction between architecture and museology content: a synthesis of both, the museum is a building and should expose itself as such, just like science takes the knowledge through experience of reality. The freedom of the various possible displacements provides a diversity of spatialities and sensations, setting up a process of knowledge construction through the emotions that the visitor is experiencing along his movement through space. Teaching through the architecture of the museum and transforming it as a teaching tool, making it a fundamental stimulus for the visitor to ask himself about the world.

Exploratory Science Museum, rendering courtesy of CHN arquitetos

A ’scientific’ itinerary concept design begins even before the arrival at the Museum when, from the first contact with the building in the site, a reading (a priori) occurs through the sensations caused by its external characteristics, stimulating questions and queries about its nature and becoming a partial understanding as you approach the building. Secondly, the route through the Museum´s interior is revealed as a clarification and understanding (knowledge) of what had been observed before. A path of progressive and singular emotions capable of stimulating the perception of the user as it experiences and interacts with the Museum. Discovering the nature and form of the building by the transition between inner and outer space of the entrance square, the access to the horizontal volume of the museum is involved by the controlled and dynamic lighting of the closures, the immersive space of the temporary exhibition and culminating in the monumental vertical space dedicated to the permanent exhibition, the visitor turns out to have a total learning of the Museum. Finally, the moment of departure sets the last observation (a posteriori) about the institution: a different view of the outside from a distinct and cognitive repertory, now endowed with a real knowledge about the object and able to provide a definitive vision of your visit considering that this will be different for each new occasion. As Science itself, a journey that is defined by moments of search and instants of intense discovery.

SUSTAINABILITY / ENVIRONMENTAL COMFORT

Energetic Efficiency: the comfort conditions for the users are guaranteed by natural climatization during most of the time by the fact that the building in its whole can be controlled manually, saving energy for both ventilation (air-conditioning used only when necessary to compensate external conditions or circumstances for specific exhibitions) as well as for lighting. The project will also reduce interference on the ground and enables the occupation of the rest of the area with small or large vegetation.

Facade: the aluminum plates that enclose the building functioning as brises, play a crucial thermal protection in the climatic conditions to which is exposed the museum. The surfaces are the key elements that ensure an appropriate level of comfort within the building and the flexibility of control in the winter and summer. The predominance of the color white in almost all exterior contributes to the thermal performance to reflect the maximum of radiation effect and thus the transmission of heat into the building.

Exploratory Science Museum, rendering courtesy of CHN arquitetos

LANGUAGE / MATERIALITY

Through its masterplan design and form, combined to the matter of which is constituted, the museum brings together Science and spatial and sensory expressions. Using predominantly reflective materials (steel, aluminum and glass) the building becomes, first, a point of light, a reflection not very definite by distance, but that reveals itself as approached. A diffuse glow that refers to an event in perpetual motion as the light of day and night changes. The potentialization of a phenomenon and a stimulus for any person to ask about the world that surrounds you.

The surface of the facade is created from the idea of infinity: a reference to the essence of its form, recognizable from its cosmological scale to its most minimal. We can find similarities in everything that constitutes the universe around us and the building seeks to transmit them. Likewise, being a Science Museum, the aprehention of this information also occurs in a progressive way, from its conception to its understanding.

We start with a scientific knowledge of man over nature: the infinite in nature is recognized and subsequently parameterized by man through mathematical and geometric concepts. This scientific knowledge leads to a second type of infinity, synthesized in the concept of fractal: infinitesimal rate created by man from his interpretation of the characteristics of the environment that surrounds him, new notions of self-similarity and infinite complexity, capable to understand the nature and its unlimited scales. Our design is a third view over this concept creating a human interpretation of a natural event through the materiality and texture of the building.

Exploratory Science Museum, skin diagram courtesy of CHN arquitetos

From an initial mathematical scheme a perforating “code” is drawn and applied to the surfaces. Then a pattern of 10 pieces is created, following industrial dimensions and varying its design of aperture / transparency in accordance to the quantity / size of the perforations adopted. The layout of these pieces on the facades of the building corresponds to the internal uses, being more dense or diffuse according to the luminance control required for the activities. The repetition and mixture of these pieces is capable of generating an infinite and parameterized design that will be recognized in the extent that the user observes the building from the most distant points to the interior ones, discovering it at each moment.

To make that the matter which constitutes the Museum may reveal the totality of its existence and turns out to have a proper meaning through human language. An event that synthesizes in itself form and function: symbol, design, climatic shield, phenomenon, didactic element, parameter of the infinite. A Museum capable of stimulating the imagination and knowledge of the individual, allowing each one to create your own story from an experience, and keep in your consciousness the magnificent relation between Man, Nature and Science.

Exploratory Science Museum, site plan courtesy of CHN arquitetos

Exploratory Science Museum, floor plans courtesy of CHN arquitetos

Exploratory Science Museum, sections courtesy of CHN arquitetos

Exploratory Science Museum, construction diagram courtesy of CHN arquitetos

Project Name: Exploratory Science Museum of Unicamp (First Prize – International Public Competition)
Location: Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
Year: 2009
Site Area: 28.968m²
Construction Area: 5.370m²

Hotel V – Wanchai | studio OFF

Hotel V - Wanchai, image courtesy of studio OFF

Hotel V - Wanchai, image courtesy of studio OFF

This project is a full-scale conversion & façade modification of Hotel V from a 30+ years old office block located in Wanchai, Hong Kong. It was designed by studio OFF with an idea of roughness as a metaphor. The wall finished with a special mosaic expression tile – Tri-tonal Tile® to give different visual expressions in different weather conditions and viewing angles.

this roughness, as a metaphor, does not cover just the literal one – the unevenness of surfaces, the colour disorder of the surrounding, the chaos of façade expression along the streetscape, the ups & downs of the skyline – all in all, this is the backbone where our concept lies.

Russell Law
principle of studio OFF

+ Project description courtesy of studio OFF

Full-scale conversion & façade modification of Hotel V
An urban dwelling carved to order

Project Background

The building was originally a 30-plus-year-old 12-storey office block in Wanchai. In the 4th floor there is a terrace balcony with an area of approximately 43 m2. The original building was cladded with dark marbles in much worn condition.

Location & site plan courtesy of studio OFF

Design Concept and Development – an urban dwelling carved to order

We started off studying the existing contexts of the site and have concluded with a very interesting finding – the roughness of the community where the building stands. However, this roughness, as a metaphor, does not cover just the literal one – the unevenness of surfaces, the colour disorder of the surrounding, the chaos of façade expression along the streetscape, the ups & downs of the skyline – all in all, this is the backbone where our concept lies.

We look at the building as another existing piece of big “roughness” in front of us. There is indeed a reference of which we associate the whole building to – Cappadocia, Turkey. The idea is then to carve the whole piece of this roughness to a space inhabitable. And the notion of this rough-smooth-duality is formulated and this has colonized every corner of the building.

Hotel V - Wanchai, image courtesy of studio OFF

This rough-smooth-duality can be visualized in all guest rooms as in the featured wall where all functional space is covered with back-lit, smooth polycarbonate doors whereas all exposed wall surfaces are finished with artificial carved-stone. The result is a wall of features with all functions properly enclosed and at the same time a sense of roughness is left as the aftermath of carved-living.

Hotel V - Wanchai, image courtesy of studio OFF

Hotel V - Wanchai, diagrams courtesy of studio OFF

The same design principles are applied in the entrance foyer – with a twist. The cave-like entrance, a rough element, features a ceiling/wall complex with a subtle transformation from a squared opening in the shop-front to an arc of quarter-ellipse in the reception and is regarded as the rough element. Also changing is the scale of it – from more than 5m high in the shop-front to a mere 2.5m in the reception desk, this change of ceiling scale marks a gateway from the hustle & bustle of the city to a prestigious hospitality.

Contrary to this roughness is a conceptually exaggerated “skirting” which peels off from the rough wall and has been carved to become a piece of ultra-refined, sculptured furniture. This “featured skirting”, made of marble, spans the whole depth of the reception foyer and stretches all the way to the shop-front. It contains various functions such as an exhibition space in the front, followed by a guest area and the reception desk in the inner end.

Hotel V - Wanchai, image courtesy of studio OFF

Hotel V - Wanchai, image courtesy of studio OFF

Hotel V - Wanchai, entrance diagram courtesy of studio OFF

At the right to the reception foyer is a mosaic wall which rolls inwards from the shop-front to form an entrance “tunnel”. A seemingly disproportional cantilevered “tunnel roof” hangs out from this mosaic wall and looks like as if it is resting on the glass wall in the other side of the tunnel – of course this is structural impossible. The wall is finished with a special tile, Tri-tonal Tile® (in a mosaic expression), designed and developed by this studio and it gives different visual expressions in different lighting conditions / viewing angles – an unique way to represent the idea of “roughness”.

Continuing from the mosaic wall outwards the Tri-tonal Tiles® wrap around to cover the whole façade of the building so we ended up having a building which looks totally different from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. It also gives different expressions under different weather conditions as well as paths of approach and viewing angles – this is a façade which subtly talks to anyone who cares to take notice of it, near or afar.

Floor plans, courtesy of studio OFF

North elevations, courtesy of studio OFF

Sections, courtesy of studio OFF

+ Project credits / data

Project title: Hotel V – wanchai
Project nature: Full-scale conversion – fitting-out plus façade modification
Location: Wanchai, Hong Kong
Site footage area : 155 m2
Building height: 40.25 m
Site dimensions: 9.58 m (width) x 16.16 m (depth)
Total floor area: 1626 m2