Archinect - News

A breezy masonry home in Australia designed to "get better, not worse, with time"

2020-05-18T19:52:00-04:00

UK architect Peter Besley, a co-founder of Assemblage Studio who now runs his own eponymous architecture practice, has recently completed work on the Couldrey House in Brisbane, Australia.

The 3,400-square-foot, two-and-a-half level home is built out of brick and deploys a selection of earth-bound climate control approaches that include thermal mass, radiant cooling, and passive ventilation strategies.

Besley writes, "I [...] designed Couldrey House to spring directly from the subterranean rock and to be made of heavy materials lasting a very long time," adding, "The forms and spaces are compelling, but simple. They sit heavily on the ground. They seem to say to the landscape: 'I can accompany you in your long journey.'"

Attempting to tap into the overlooked geologic monumentality of the Brisbane area, Besley has created a home that is inward looking and intentionally shuts out the sounds of the city through its massive walls and cloistered internal organization.

"The architecture ...

OMG! designs "Primitive Hut," a pavilion that will decompose over time

2017-10-19T19:18:00-04:00

In his Essai sur l’Architecture, the 18th-century French architecture theorist Marc-Antoine Laugier developed the concept of the Primitive Hut. Exploring the origins of architecture, Laugier described the primitive man as constructing a shelter to protect himself from nature. The iconic frontispiece of the second edition, by the artist, Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen, made the book's argument clear. It shows an allegorical figure, representing architecture, pointing to the primitive hut, a new structural clarity found in nature.

Essai sur l'Architecture, frontispiece by Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen. Image via Wikipedia.

Drawing by OMG!, inspired by Charles-Dominique Joseph Eisen's frontispiece.

Martin Miller from Antistatics and Caroline O’Donnell from CODA—previously featured in our Small Studio Snapshot series—partnered with one another as OMG! to create their own Primitive Hut. Inspired by Marc-Antoine Laugier’s work, the duo created a pavilion made of decomposing materials tha...

Dreaming of an architecture that could produce buildings with organs and physiologies

2013-09-26T13:08:00-04:00

Very immediately I’m working on the Persephone Project which is concerned with the design and implementation of a giant natural computer that will form the ‘living’ interior to a world-ship. It is going to be officially launched at the Starship Congress, in Dallas, from august the 15 of this year. I will also talk about Persephone further at Future Fest in the UK which runs over the weekend 28th to the 29th September.

Earlier this summer Alessia Andreotti spoke with Dr. Rachel Armstrong about living buildings, Venice’s foundations, millennial nature and how to improve our future. The two also discussed Dr. Armstrong's involvement in the Persephone Project, which is "charged with the design and implementation of a giant natural computer that will form the ‘living’ interior to the Icarus Interstellar worldship, which constitutes a kind of ‘space’ Nature".

As a bonus, over at Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster shared Rachel Armstrong’s August 15th presentation at Starship Congress, with his readers.

h/t Bruce Sterling