Roof Garden Apartment by Tonkin Liu (UK)

Roof Garden Apartment by Tonkin Liu; photo by Mike Tonkin

This airy rooftop apartment located in London’s sought-after area of Shoreditch has been realised by the British practice Tonkin Liu. Built atop an old brick warehouse, the two-storey family house boasts six bedrooms, a play area, a living room and a terrace enclosed with fragrant climbers while its fine-white-mesh and galvanised-steel façade ‘mirrors the changing colour of the sky and captures light and shadows.’

Roof Garden Apartment by Tonkin Liu; photo by Mike Tonkin

About the project:

‘On top of a warehouse in Shoreditch an empty roof overlooked the city. The brief was for a six-bedroom family house with outdoor spaces that maximised the potentials of the site. The owners wanted a place for the family to grow that would bring life and greenery to the Shoreditch cityscape. The existing brick warehouse structure was damaged and rebuilt after the war. The central columns were not adequate to take any additional loads. The load of the new building had to be delivered to the perimeter walls. From a ring beam at roof level the structure grows up to forms a transfer structure at high level from which the new building is hung. On the gable and party walls and within the floor slabs the frame is braced within the timber substructure. To the south and west a 7m tall loggia is formed by the external structure, framing the view of the city.  ’

Roof Garden Apartment by Tonkin Liu; photo by Mike Tonkin

‘The house is entered via a bridge that comes from a neighbouring building. The lower floor is divided into 5 bedrooms and a play area with a sunken conversation pit. All the rooms open out onto a terrace enclosed with planting. The main living space is a tall room on the upper level. In the centre of the space a tower, housing the polycarbonate bathroom, rises up through the structure to bring in light. Patterns of rain are projected onto the floor by lighting the skylight from the roof level. To the west the master bedroom can be closed off with a giant sliding door. A cantilevered balcony overlooks the city to the south. A spiral staircase leads up to the green roof, the solar collectors and a large roof deck surrounded by fragrant planting. ‘

Roof Garden Apartment by Tonkin Liu; photo by Tonkin Liu

to Tonkin Liu’s profile on Architonic

to the Roof Garden Apartment project on Architonic

Tokinokura Lavatories Shimodate by Shuichiro Yoshida Architects

Tokyo studio Shuichiro Yoshida Architects have completed a tall narrow toilet block in Chikusei City, Japan.  

Called Tokinokura Lavatories Shimodate, the double-height structure contains one wash basin and two cubicles.

Triangular panels in the ends and one side of the upper section are glazed, while wooden beams support the sloping roof.

The new building was constructed alongside a stone former storage building, now used as the headquarters of a volunteer group.

Photographs are by Sadamu Saito.

The information below is from the architects:

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Tokinokura lavatories Shimodate

The project is located in Chikusei City in Ibaraki Prefecture, approximately 60km north-east from Tokyo in Japan. In this region, there are historical storage buildings of stone since early 20th century, although the most of these buildings, called “Ishi-Kura” in Japanese, were demolished and disappeared from the townscape due to the city development after the World War II.

A volunteer group in the region obtained one of the storage buildings and maintains it as their activity base for discovering the region-specific historical and cultural heritages. The building is named as Tokinokura, which means a storage persists in past and future.

Although Tokinokura is in good condition and useful for the volunteer group, there was no lavatories for the visitors and staffs. In autumn 2008, the group organized a public design competition for the lavatories, which they desired for long time. This design was selected out of 76 applied design proposals and constructed in Feburary – May 2009.

This small lavatories building includes two booths for men and women. Although the floor area is only 8.62㎡, there is rich space above the booths. It is intended that the lavatories starts new history with Tokinokura. It means not only to preserve the region-specific landscape but also to create new landscape in future. Visitors in the lavatory booth could experience quiet and rich feeling, enjoying the soft light from the upper window and the framed view of the old stone wall of Tokinokura.

Materials

Interior Wall finish: White plasterer finish of Japanese traditional material called “Shikkui” which has humid conditioning and fire prevention. Many traditional, important architecture as Temple, Shrine, Castle in Japan finished this material on their walls.
Ceiling finish: Structural plywood painted and structure beam of laminated timber
Floor finish: mortar finish with clear painted
Exterior wall finish: Black and elastic plasterer finish coordinating with the surrounding landscape.
Approach floor finish: White granite stone like the back wall material of Tokinokura.
Roof and window frame: Barium steel gull with black printing painted like the materials of covered wall in neighbor storage.

The Dovecot Studio, Sufffolk, by Haworth Tompkins: AJ Small Projects shortlist #3

Shortlisted for the AJ Small Projects Award, (an annual competition for projects completed for under £250,000) this studio forms part of the music campus at Snape Maltings, founded by Benjamin Britten in derelict industrial buildings on the Suffolk coast.

The studio inhabits a ruin and expresses the internal volume of the existing Victorian structure as a Cor-ten steel ‘lining’.

The monocoque, welded structure was built next to the ruin and craned in once complete.

The building is welded in a single piece to achieve weather-tightness, and then fitted with a simple plywood inner lining.

A large roof window provides even light for artists, while a small mezzanine platform with a desk incorporates a fully opening glazed corner window that has long views over the marshes.

Plans

  

  

Project details

Architects: Haworth Tompkins
Photographer: Philip Vile
Name: The Dovecote Studio
Address: Snape Maltings, Snape, Suffolk
Start on site: January 2009
Date of completion: August 2009
Gross external floor area: 30m²
Form of contract: JCT IFC ‘98
Total cost: £155,000

Park Avenue South by Studioctopi

London architects Studioctopi have completed an extension to a Victorian end-of-terrace house in north London that features an angular roof and large triangular skylights.

Called Park Avenue South, the extension is clad entirely with black zinc.

This addition to the original house doubles the size of the kitchen/dining room, which now connects directly to the garden through a section of wall that swings outwards.

Photographs have been taken by Lyndon Douglas.

Here’s some more information from Studioctopi:

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PARK AVENUE SOUTH

The extension to this Victorian end of terrace house is located between Crouch End and Muswell Hill.

The original builder was also the house’s first resident, and made the most of his triangular plot by allowing the side of the building to fan out to meet the line of the adjacent public footpath.

On the ground floor this resulted in an additional fillet of space splitting the living and dining rooms. It was the divisional nature of this space (used as a utility room) that the client asked studio octopi to resolve.

By relocating the utility room, the plan was reordered and paved the way for an extension that linked the living spaces.

The design was developed through a series of folded paper sketch models exploring the nature of the triangular plot, the geometry and aspect.

The lines of the roof ridges were drawn out from two points on the rear wall of the house, whilst the elevations extend the lines of the living room and the external rear wall of the kitchen.

The structure is clad entirely in black zinc, with standing seams tracing a path across the roof, emphasising its complex topography and echoing the folds created in the paper concept models.

From a distance, the structure reads as a strong geometric form that has grown out from the back of the house, but at closer quarters, its edges appear to soften and the malleability of the zinc and the very slight billows in its surface come into focus.

The impression formed is of a tailored garment turned inside out to reveal a complex structure of pleated seams.

Internally, the smooth planes and sharp facets of the ceiling recall an origami paper lantern, neatly folded and then popped up into three dimensions to form a bright lining to the dark fabric over-garment.

Seemingly in constant motion, the planes shift and tilt, alternating with triangular roof lights that frame views of the sky, trees and distant chimney-tops.

A cantilevered island unit clad in seamless black granite delineates the kitchen from the living space.

Bridging the step down to the kitchen it creates on one side a working surface at waist height, and a seating area on the other.

This monumental feature is echoed in the granite terraces that lead out into the garden.

Click for larger image

These are the first elements of the planned landscaping, with areas of paving and planting that will reflect the form of the structure’s openings like patches of light cast by the paper lantern.