M Coffee Restaurant Interior Lighting Design, Hooman Balazadeh

Hooman Balazadeh architecture designer has created the unique contemporary cafe restaurant interior lighting decorating idea presented on M Cafe Interior architectural which can be found in Tehran, Iran.

The spatial modern cafe restaurant concept is to present a significant solid mass that connects the entrance to the room at the service counter and also illustrates the ceiling and walls as a continuous element. This solid mass provides the essential light area indirectly and removes any sharp and disturbing light. The form is generated by morphing two curves over each other that creates a wide variety of points of view different perspectives and diverse experiences in each location. To avoid a multiplicity of materials, two basic materials are selected to cause the spatial quality and flow of relaxing light in space.






Light cream base layer covering the roof and walls and envelopes continuously dark wood floor, parts of the walls, furniture, entry, and the service counter and the kitchen continuously.

Source

Desiderata Alternative High School / Jones Studio

Jones Studio was selected in 2004 to design a new space for the special Desiderata Alternative Program. This 125 student school is dedicated to helping teens with emotional disorders attain a high school education as well as learn basic life skills. Moving the school from a 1920’s historic building, “Desi” would be relocated into an industrial building. The 30,000 sqf program entailed a complete build-out after gutting the entire interior. A wide variety of program elements from administrative offices, classrooms, food preparation, therapy areas, and fitness rooms are arranged for optimal function within the existing shell.

The architects chose to add exterior planted courtyards within the existing building’s walls in order to create outdoor classrooms and bring in natural light. Eight-foot square skylights take advantage of the industrial building’s high, wood roof structure to distribute natural light to multiple classroom clerestories. Colored glazing and a variety of paint colors de-institutionalize the building and create a rich, varied learning environment for the children.





The Desiderata Alternative Program is dedicated to helping 14 to 21 year-old children with emotional disorders attain a high school education as well as learn basic life skills. It is comprised of children from throughout the Phoenix Union High School District.

The Desiderata Program has been housed in a number of temporary locations.





The acquisition of an existing building in Phoenix Business Park in late 2004, was the successful culmination of a search by Phoenix Union High School District to find a permanent home for the Desiderata Program. The expansive commercial structure was full of potential and would be able to accommodate not only the Program’s functional needs, but also its aspirations of creating a rich, day lit learning environment. Housed within this new built environment are a variety of room types including thirteen Classrooms, a Computer Lab, Group Therapy Rooms, an Activities Room, a Cafetorium, an Instructional Kitchen, a Fitness Room, and Administrative Offices. The New Desiderata Building attempts to better meet the needs of the students and staff by creating a larger, more unified facility with strong connections to the outdoors and daylight. The Desiderata Building will be a home that students and staff can take pride in for years to come.






The previously agrarian site was developed into Phoenix Business Park in 1973, a conglomeration of commercial, retail, and industrial properties covering twelve acres. The Desiderata Building was constructed in 1980 as a speculative commercial property (reference Program Section 7.0 for the floor plan). The building was formerly home to Meta Graphix, a Commercial Print Shop, and the building’s only known tenant. Concrete block exterior walls encompass 31,825 square feet of office and warehouse space in a roughly U-shaped plan. The building’s current office spaces occupy its center, and are linked to the east parking lot via two storefront entrances. The north and south portions of the structure were used as several vast warehouse spaces. Like many industrial buildings, windows and natural daylight are found only at the office entrances.










In renovating the building, the project looked to breath new life into the structure by building on the hopes of students and staff for a light, airy, and inspired learning environment. By responding to its new academic function and new occupants, the building will gain a new vitality and renewed sense of purpose, becoming an integral part of the community.
The Desiderata Alternative Program is a highly structured school environment which couples a High School Curriculum with Therapy and Social Integration Programs. To accomplish its purpose, the School must accommodate the needs of a variety of User Groups including Teachers, Social Workers, Therapists, Pathologists, Administrators, Food Service Providers, Information Technology Workers, and Security Personnel.










Architects: Jones Studio Inc.
Location/Address: Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Principal-In-Charge: Neal Jones
Lead Designer: Eddie Jones
Project Manager: Rob Viergutz
Job Captain: Aaron Forbes
Contractor/CMAR: Sun Eagle Corporation
Landscape Architect: Chris Winters
Cost Consultant: Adriana Crnjac
Civil Engineering: George Evans
M&P Engineering: Peter Kunka
Specifications: Norm Littler
Structural Engineering: Mark Rudow
Electrical Engineering: Doug Woodward
Client: Phoenix Union High School District
Project Area: 30,000 sqf
Project Year: 2006
Photographs: Bill Timmerman







Source: Arch Daily

Transylvania Cultural Center / Ioana Mihaela Agachi, Octav S. Olanescu, Anamaria C. Popa & Vlad S. Rusu

Ioana Mihaela Agachi, Octav S. Olanescu, Anamaria C. Popa and Vlad S. Rusu shared with us their first prize entry for the Transylvania Cultural Center. The competition was initiated by the Cluj-Napoca’s city administration to determine the best solution for the design theme for a new Cultural Center which is based on the city’s Cultural Developement Strategy. The new Cultural Center was designed to host a new Philharmonic Hall, offices, restaurants, spaces for performing artists, a building for restoration facilities and different exhibition spaces. More images and their description after the break









The new Transylvania Cultural Center is located to the east of the city, close to the historical center. The area of 13,923 sqm is located to the southern front of the 21 December 1989 Ave. and is limited by an historical building to the north. To the west, there are government buildings and a tall business building. To the east, there is state-owned land occupied by small residential buildings, offices and shops. To the south is Navodari street. Some of the coordinates leading to the proposal were the establishment of appropriate public space and the creation of representative new buildings.








We proposed to organize the new Cultural Center along a new street perpendicular to Navodari Street and to 21 Dec.1989 Avenue.This street serves as an adequate distribution of car traffic and pedestrians. The east-west street orientation also introduces the permanence of the sun throughout the day, as well as the presence of pedestrians that will overcrowd the new cultural artery.






The volumetry of the Cultural Center seeks to include itself in the sinuous motion of Cluj-Napoca’s rooftops. Surprise elements and green gardens contribute to the atmosphere of the top levels’ terraces. The vertical disposal of different layers of space is another reference to tradition.



Architects: PhD Ioana Mihaela Agachi (Technical University Cluj-Napoca), Octav S. Olanescu (Technical University Cluj-Napoca, s82), Anamaria C. Popa (s82), Vlad S. Rusu (Technical University Cluj-Napoca)
Location: Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Project: Competition to determine the design theme of Transylvania Cultural Center
Year: 2010









Source: Arch Daily

Egyptian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale / INVERT Studios

The architectural firm INVERT Studios recently took part of the prestigious La Biennale di Venezia where they presented their work for the Egyptian Pavilion. Images and the architects description after the break.

THE STORY

Conflicts and wars.. Divergence and quarrels.. Are consequences of people’s short sight and lack of Insight… resulting in the continued aspiration towards salvation.. Where people see in the future, A refuge for their souls from pains and soreness on earth… In life and in their own existence… Idea and Impulse… Freedom of soul is a desire of every living human on the planet.. promised by the oracles thousands of years ago.. people reach for a way.. a road.. or a spot of light at the end of the tunnel.. Where it comes with the Idea that.. people “meet” in architecture.. or people “agree” in architecture.. or people find a resolution in architecture.. when architecture represents ALL humans needs… a shelter.. a flee..An escape.. when people are convinced that the impulsive Power that bonds all of them together is the belief in the commons and not the differences.. the similarity and not the divergence.. at the moment where people believe that The truth of salvation is in resemblances…

GOALS AND METHODOLOGY

The dissertation represents all the thought and ancient. Beliefs of people throughout the history.. The manuscript in itself is meaningless without the ink giving it life.. And distinguishing its soul.. Making up the ideas and inspiration.. Leading people to believe, love and hate.. The methodology depends on decoding the inseparable relation between the ink and the paper.. Pushing the paper to its edge.. to the limit of its potential.. so that it represents all mankind in its procedures, aspirations, hopes and needs.. Influencing the manuscript with every process known in design to push it to expel and evaporate in to a cloud of thoughts inviting man to think.. Imagine.. Assume.. and believe..

With parameters seem to be rather independent but, anyway, cross influencing – which strengthens the Idea of a dialectic relation between them and their antonyms. Without anticipating these results ,the hypothesis that the success of any operational ‘usage’ of design parameters to obtain authenticity or artificiality depends on the successful management of some more layers. Among these might be ‘appropriateness salvation’ (which is a question of context) and ‘eloquence of narration’ in the sense of complexity or simplicity of expression. As an example, the use of white color can either be considered authentic or serine, depending on a whole bunch of factors that urge to be explored.

CONCEPT STATEMENT

‏In the beginning stands the manuscript empty, cold, waiting in silence & serenity…
‏Then comes the prophecy… so lines illustrate… interact and weave letters, congregate to engender ideas, giving birth to beliefs, merging with visions to create dreams…

‏So papers shudder & shiver, and beliefs struggle …. Then letters Extract to evaporate off the reality leaving emptiness… then tangible solid develop into thought and thoughts…
‏Interacts and interlace and come out to explore and show the way… Search for salvation and in rescue it aspires…

‏Leads the spread people, struggling and irritated … it pronounces the truth of the past, and tells the legend of the future… there people meet in idea… and people meet in aspiration to salvation….
‏The genesis is the same, and essence of life itself is the same… same fear and same sorrow… same species from same womb… to same destiny …
‏

Then the clouds contract and shiver to sculpture the reality… that we construct to destroy and the dilemma of life is eternal… people search, speculate, cry… and no answer but silence… salvation is in the belief of genuineness, and certainty is in recognizing resemblances.






Source: Arch Daily

X ray Kitchen

New to a kitchen and not sure where to locate which dishes? No worries: this clever custom kitchen cabinet system will light your way to the right serving bowls, plates, utensils and gadgets, showing their forms as shadows directly on the doors of these cabinets.



Ever the hybrid architect, artist and minimalist designer, Jean Nouvel has accomplished a great deal with this design idea – the find-anything functionality of see-through cabinetry, the animated and ever-changing artistry of light and dark shapes and the naturally and of course the built-in lighting itself that can illuminate the kitchen background while you cook.




The components are surprisingly simple, cheap and low-tech considering the complex effects: standard translucent white panels and aluminum hinges on the cabinets combined with conventional lamps along the back wall behind the objects they store.




While their creator makes no explicit mention of this fact, there is an uncanny resemblance between this design and the way x-rays look when hung on the light-panels hanging on the walls of a doctor office. While the look is modern (which often implies expensive), local designers and do-it-yourself-ers could buy the components quite easily at wholesale prices for building a similar project.


Source: Dornob