Architektura, an architectural practice based in the Czech Republic, combines design solutions with contemporary modern technology and the simplest construction, producing things with passion and individualism. The Studio also looks for information, inspiration and motivation outside of architecture – in martial arts, drumming, visual arts, writing, or physical work; at sea, in the forest, and on the street.
Archidiaries is excited to share the Project of the Week – The Chuan Malt Whisky Distillery | Neri&Hu Design and Research Office. Along with this, the weekly highlight contains a few of the best projects, published throughout the week. These selected projects represent the best content curated and shared by the team at ArchiDiaries.
Venue Building, a renewed dune landscape added to the existing coast, designed by Architectural Studio ZJA, offers room for a casino, hotel, restaurant, multifunctional event space and an underground parking garage which ensures a car-free zone on street level. The design resides in its intimate integration with the dune landscape, the transformation of the town centre into one that is pedestrian friendly and the introduction of a landmark building.
Casa no Pomar do Cafezal, a house designed by Coletivo Levante, represents a constructive model that uses common materials in the slums, with adequate implementation and attention to lighting and ventilation, resulting in a space with great environmental quality. The house ensures better thermal inertia in a slum area, with the horizontal settlement having a latticework wall with concrete blocks.
Coletivo Levante, an architectural firm based in Brazil, believes that fluid communication between people is an essential factor to achieve integrated results, where the socio-cultural reality is so diverse and the demands for architectural and urbanistic solutions are increasingly complex. Studio also works on the appreciation of permeability in architecture, with equal emphasis on open and closed spaces.
Esprit House, designed by APOLLO Architects & Associates Co. Ltd., has a massive concrete and glass exterior, incorporating the concept of privacy and openness to the public sphere. The design is linking indoor and outdoor living spaces and encloses them with greenery resulting in a serene atmosphere with attractive views.
IGI Library, designed by Atakarchitekti, creates a new public place that connects to the existing vibrant center of Vratislavice, Czech Republic, defined by a public building. A new Piazzetta, in the form of an extension to the old building, is being created, inspired by the rhythm of small squares in the vicinity of the public buildings.
Atakarchitekti, an architectural practice based in the Czech Republic, was founded by architects Jana and Jirka. The firm focuses on designing, consulting and drawing everything from designer furniture to interiors, new buildings, and renovations to the scale of urban planning.
The Chuan Malt Whisky, designed by Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, is a distillery and home built in contrast to the vernacular roots of the industrial buildings, where the two visitor experience buildings are built upon fundamental geometries: the circle and the square that represent heaven and earth in Chinese philosophy. The project is also an embodiment of the refined sense of artistry embedded in whisky-making and blending, which is in dialogue with traditional Chinese craftsmanship and knowledge of materials.
POROHAUS, designed by Unbox Architecture, is a practical and cozy home with three-bedroom suites for the family, a nice yard and maximum privacy. The design eliminates the environmental “noises” and creates an urban villa with maximal privacy. The house has a compact layout and a modern style, keeping the three facades relatively sealed and using a courtyard for natural light and ventilation into the house.
Unbox Architecture, a practice based in India, is a design firm incorporating principles of sustainability, biophilia, and environmental responsibility into work. Studio strives to create buildings incorporating natural elements such as sunlight, greenery, and natural materials to promote well-being and a stress free built environment.
Rural House, designed by Takayuki Kuzushima and Associate, replaces the typical urban characteristic with the individuality of the architectural design. The planned site of the house is a calm place with a view of the Suzuka Mountains in the distance and the fields surrounding it. The design took the form of a courthouse, with rooms arranged in various orientations.
Coloratus Bar, designed by Soong Lab+, has the colour ‘red’ as the design theme of the Bar, hoping to stimulate the wild energy of the place from the inside out through the abstract emotion concept, and guide visitors to explore the correlation between the space and emotional expression.
Apartments Filipovice, designed by CL3, is a freestyle transcription of the traditional morphology of the original architecture of Jeseniky, Czech Republic, having the concept of contemporary minimalist architecture. The design relies on traditional materials – the wooden cladding of larch shingles from the local forest, a free paraphrase of the facades of local barns, and gabels of residential buildings.
Atelier CL3, an architectural and commercial joint venture based in the Czech Republic, is created within the platform of the Architects’ Association Collab studio – a laboratory that goes beyond mere design. The Firm’s main motto is that “Architecture for us is not a pursuit of a pretty picture or a routine factory of dreams.”
Twin Home, designed by tHE gRID architects, takes an advantage of natural resources as much as possible, and together with internal courtyards, ensures a living environment nourished by the sun and air, and embraces the features of biophilic design. The cuboids that dominate the built form are orchestrated to create intimacy without being restrictive by strengthening and unifying the architectural scheme.
Terra Verde House, designed by Rishit Shroff Architects, explores the aesthetic character of the countryside and uses human intervention to nature as a backdrop to view the rural scenery. The house has been designed as a simple, strong silhouette to provide the setting to frame and enjoy the surroundings. The planning of the house is structured along a longitudinal axis running parallel to the length of the plot but also coinciding with the best sun orientation, winds and views.
Rishit Shroff Architects, a firm based in Ahmedabad, has a design ideology based on sustainability, plenty of natural light, and wide spaces that connect the inside with the outside, as seen in the courtyards, patios, and overhanging terraces. The firm also specialises in Animal Habitat & Enclosure Designs, having designed Reptile Enclosures, Aquariums, Aviaries and Feline Enclosures for various zoos and nature parks across Gujarat.
Atelier Gardens is an old film studio campus, redesigned by MVRDV, which preserves and enhances spatial diversity: a series of sustainable transformations that take advantage of the existing structures, rather than demolishing them, for maximising the potential of the spaces between. The film studio campus provides an ecologically focused landscape, like water permeability and biodiversity with rooftop gardens and green plazas.
Achioté is a twin villa, designed by Formafatal, based on the genius loci – concept, oriented towards the endless view of the Pacific Ocean and the morphology of the terrain. The architecture of villas is deliberate with its thin and sharp lines in contrast to lush tropical vegetation, comprising materials like rammed earth and colors for perfectly coinciding with the surroundings.
Twin Family House, designed by Manoj Patel Design Studio, has an evolving volume with unique spatial planning that caters to connections internally with foyers, balconies and common areas, having an interesting hierarchy of open, semi-open and closed spaces. Linear planning of these residences, mirrors from the central common stairs leading to each resident’s private space for staying. The living typology exhibits clusters of settlements in the built environment.
Riverstone Holiday Home, designed by COLLAGE Architecture Studio, has a double height volume, which flows into the living, and dining area and subsequently into the outdoor decks. The volume opens up towards the Northeastern side to bring in ambient daylight and look out towards the river. The spaces, materials and details exist in tandem to form a synergy with the lush landscape and the flowing Kaveri.
De-Hostel is an old Dexing Rice Factory, redesigned by Studio APL, preserving the old atmosphere and reimagining and recreating the new neighborhood relationship. This reuse and redesign of the old industrial buildings in Zhutian Township, Taiwan, shape the new courtyard housing space. The new exterior wall creates 51 voids with different functions such as; window openings, wind openings, light openings, plant openings and memory voids.
Studio APL, a practice based in China, combines aspects such as environment, culture, and materiality to create unique possibilities and unified space. Studio explores the diverse development of modern spaces in the field of residential, commercial, and public spaces.
