Monier Residence

The Monier residence is a wood and rammed earth structure utilizes a variety of sustainable systems to produce its own energy and regulate its climate. The building is situated on a 4-acre site in Perth, West Australia and comprises 3 bedrooms and 2,500 square feet. Ackert Architecture designed the award winning structure “as a demonstration project to show how alternative energy and passive systems could be integrated to create a self sufficient home.”

Rammed Earth - With a Veneer of Science

David Oliver, an australian architect from Queensland has spent a significant part of his professional life applying science to the simplicity of rammed earth construction. He is now recognised as a world leader in rammed earth technology and a significant driving force behind environmentally sustainable design in Australia.

Tarrawarra Museum of Art

Intended to emerge powerfully from the landscape this ultra modern gallery displays the talents of Melbourne architect Allan Powell. Almost like an earthworks sculpture that can be read as an artefact, the TarraWarra Musem of Art in Yarra Glen is a monument to modernism. Allan Powell has constructed a simple shape with the effect of a half built or buried building, which confounds the eye and engages the senses. The stunning tan and clay coloured structure rises out of the green vines of the Yarra Valley creating an unexpected vision in the valley. Sensually curved around the site, the building is primarily of dressed stone and rendered walls, coloured rendered concrete walls, and rammed earth walls, and the architect has achieved the feeling that ‘ this building is of the earth’. Visitors to this new gallery are convinced that the complex is of handcrafted natural materials and that each of the columns is different. TarraWarra Museum of Art has been entered into

Johanna House

The Johanna House, designed by Nicholas Burns, is a 4 bedrooms, 2 bath house with an open kitchen, dining/living room and cellar located on Johanna beach, Victoria, Australia. The site is on a secluded 100 acres of pristine bush land adjoining the national park with extensive views of the ocean, protected wilderness with known endangered flora and fauna. No trees were cleared in the construction of the house.

Materials used were rammed earth, concrete, glass and steel to create a discrete insertion into the landscape, a journey of gradual and layered concealment and opening of the landscape and ocean; contrasting contraction and expansion, heavy and light, opaque and transparent. Pure geometry and detailing to create a stillness, a dematerialising interconnection with nature, landscape and the passing of time, place and present.

Red Hill Residence

The Red Hill Residence designed by CHRISTOPHERCHRIS PTY LTD ARCHITECTURE was constructed in Mornington Peninsula, Australia. More images of the project can be found at Arkinetia where they write, the house is "constructed primarily from locally sourced rammed earth and ship lapped cedar panelling, the house is sited across the ridge of the property. The elemental form of the building is enhanced by the contrasting and intersecting selection of material, textures and colours, threaded together by the linear rammed earth wall."

Kerry Hill

Singapore-based Australian Kerry Hill is regarded as one of the best regional architects utilising natural rammed earth, timber and stone that exude an almost monastic ambience. Built on the banks of WA's Margaret River, Hill's Ooi house (above) is a single-storey, three bedroom holiday residence with a guest chalet intended to be the first of several.

Vineyard Residence

The Vineyard Residence, by John Wardle Architects, combines rammed earth with heavy timber framing and slim steelwork in the palette of materials. The design was awarded best residential building by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.

Kashgar: The End of a Mud Brick City

Historically, the daily life of the inhabitants of Al Ain, today the second largest city in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, took place in the palm gardens of the oasis and the surrounding settlements and markets. To protect the oases, watchtowers and forts were erected. The Jahili Fort located in the modern-day centre of the city is the largest of Al Ain’s forts. Built in the 19th century by Sheikh Zayed the First, it can be seen from the Al Ain oasis to the west of the city. With its distinct three-tiered profile, the fort is now a national monument, pictured on the 50 Dirham note and often used as a logo or model for new architecture. The old fort was erected at the end of the 19th century.

The fort was recently restored by Roswag & Jankowski Architekten, Berlin.

The interior surfaces remain true to the historical appearance. The ceiling consists of palm rafters and palm leaves. A local clay plaster has been used for the interior wall surfaces. In the exhibition areas a grey coloured fine clay finishing plaster made by Claytec was used to create a neutral background for the exhibition spaces. The floors likewise follow historical precedence and are made of rammed earth stabilised with a wax to cope with greater wear and tear.

All new insertions such as doors and furniture, made of corian or wood composite, are coloured white differentiating them from the surrounding building. The external render of the existing walls was examined and repaired where necessary. Previous renovation works had employed a non-traditional plaster with added gypsum for the crenelations. This plaster is too rigid and already exhibited defects; it was replaced with a clay plaster. The building was then given an overall finishing coat of clay plaster. The earth plaster is maintained at regular intervals as is traditional with this historical material. When used as an external render, clay plaster should be regarded as a weathering surface that needs ongoing maintenance, typically every two years, sometimes after sustained periods of heavy rain. Sandstorms are also a cause of erosion.

Most of the spaces will house a permanent exhibition “Mubarak bin London: Wilfried Thesiger and the Freedom of the Desert” showing photographs taken in the 1940s by the researcher and explorer Wilfried Thesiger who in the 1940s crossed the deserts of the Arabian peninsula repeatedly travelling with Bedouins and documenting what he saw with a Leica camera.

The 90 cm thick external earth walls offer excellent thermal insulation. The additional insulation on the roof improves still further the indoor room temperature and together with the solar protection windows on the façade provide effective protection against the extreme heat outdoors. The building is kept at a constant 24°C using a water-based cooling system integrated into the plaster layer of the walls. This minimizes the need for additional air cooling so that only fresh air is required. The cool indoor temperature of the walls and the reduced need for cold air makes the indoor climate more comfortable and reduces the energy consumption. An actual room temperature of 24°C equates to a felt room temperature of 22°C. The plant and technical installations for the entire fort are located below ground in the buffer zone.

The construction is made of traditionally available building materials including earth, palm products and to a lesser degree also timber. The quartered palm trunks can span a room of about 2.70 m and dictate the strongly partitioned structure of the historic buildings. The walls consist of air-dried earth blocks which can be built directly on the sandy ground without the need for foundations. A matting made of palm fronds covered with earth is laid on rafters made of split and quartered palm trunks arranged at an incline. The small amount of timber available was used for the door and window frames.

The natural environment still manages to fill us with a sense of awe and amazement. despite the amount of scientific knowledge mankind has gathered, nature still holds great mysteries that we may never be able to unravel. this complexity has continually daunted man. in frustration, we try to control nature by enforcing order. as a result, we have distanced ourselves from the earth, even though our survival is completely dependent on it. we are trying to regain our close connection to nature.

‘la tonnelle’ by gilles bruni and marc babarit, 1996

there is an emerging art movement that is exploring mankind's desire to reconnect to the earth, through the built environment. referred to as 'natural architecture', it aims to create a new, more harmonious, relationship between man and nature by exploring what it means to design with nature in mind.

'ash dome' by david nash, 1977

the roots of this movement can be found in earlier artistic shifts like the 'land art' movement of the late nineteen sixties. although this movement was focused on protesting the austerity of the gallery and the commercialization of art, it managed to expand the formal link between art and nature. this has helped develop a new appreciation of nature in all forms of art and design.

'organic highway' by mikael hansen 1995

the 'natural architecture' movement aims to expand on 'land art' by acting as a form of activism rather than protest. this new form of art aims to capture the harmonious connection we seek with nature by merging humanity and nature through architecture. the core concept of the movement is that mankind can live harmoniously with nature, using it for our needs while respecting its importance.

'the streampath' by gilles bruni and marc babarit, 1998

the movement is characterized by the work of a number of artists, designers and architects that express these principles in their work. the pieces are simple, humble and built using the most basic materials and skills. because of this, the results often resemble indigenous architecture, reflecting the desire to return to a less technological world. the forms are stripped down to their essence, expressing the natural beauty inherent in the materials and location. the movement has many forms of expression that range from location-based interventions to structures built from living materials. however all of the works in the movement share a central ethos that demonstrates a respect and appreciation for nature.

'wave chamber' by chris drury, 1995

these works are meant to comment on architecture and provide a new framework to approach buildings and structures. they aim to infuse new ideas into architecture by subverting the idea that architecture should shelter nature. instead, the structures deliberately expose the natural materials used in the building process. we see the branches, the rocks and all the materials for what they are. we understand that these structures won't exist forever. the materials will evolve over time, slowly decomposing until no evidence remains. these features are intentional, provoking viewers to question the conventions of architecture. the designers aren't suggesting that architecture must conform to their vision, they are just providing ideas that they hope will inspire us all to rethink the relationship between nature and the built environment.

'weidendom' by sanfte strukturen, 2001

Natural architecture (the book)

author: alessandro rocca

publisher: princeton architectural press

year: 2007

ISBN: 1568987218

ISBN:13 9781568987217

a collection of works reflecting the ideas of this movement have been compiled into a book written by alessandro rocca (architect and architecture critic and a professor at the milan polytechnic). the book, due out in early november 2007, features sixty-six projects from 18 artists and architects by way of 250 photos and illustrations. each project reconsiders designing with nature in mind. projects by olafur eliasson, patrick dougherty, nils-udo, ex. studio, edward ng, n architects, and many others.

'reed chamber' by chris drury, 2002 'convex:concave' by schubert, 2003

'willow dome on the este' 2000 'organism' by schubert, 2005

patrick dougherty, 1996 'fog pad' by n architects, 2004

'clemson clay nest' by nils-udo, 2005 'toad hall' by patrick dougherty, 2004

By Ingrid Spencer

Those of us from Northern California can attest to the fact that one of the most beautiful beaches in the world is located about 20 miles north of San Francisco—Stinson Beach. It’s a little wilder than most—windy and often foggy. It’s the kind of place where you want to have bonfires, or surf, or sit by the fireplace in your beach house with the floor-to-ceiling glass doors flung open wide, taking in the sights and sounds.

That’s almost what San Francisco-based architect Cass Calder Smith, AIA’s, client does when she’s at her home in Seadrift, the small community located at Stinson’s northern tip. Her house isn’t on the ocean, but at the mouth of Bolinas Lagoon. Still, the water is there, and it shimmers and laps—just a bit calmer than it might on Stinson Beach proper. And the Fireorb fireplace in the living room of her 1,900-square-foot beach house can be turned to face the deck or the sitting area inside. Smith, whose firm CCS Architecture is known for designing a number of San Francisco’s hottest dining spots, created the net-zero energy consumption house as a getaway to accommodate his client’s three-generation family. The client, who lives in San Francisco, bought the plot of land with its original house (according to Smith, “a tired little one-story built in the 60s that didn’t take advantage of the site”) in 2004, as a weekend retreat for herself and her two sons, both of whom live in the Bay Area and have small children. “What was great about this client was that she knew exactly what kind of house should be there,” says Smith. “She knew the potential of the site.” The site, with the lagoon on one side and views of Mount Tamalpais on the other, hardly needed to be ocean-side to make it worthy of a refined yet casual retreat.

The result of the client’s vision and architect’s hand does the site justice. Local building codes require new construction to be at least three feet above grade in anticipation of rising sea levels. Smith and his team approached the design by thinking of the project as one large dock, with a house in the middle. “Like a pier, the decks on the water side step down to the water with bleacher-like stairs,” says Smith. “My client’s family can sit on the steps and watch the water or the kids swimming. On the street side there’s another deck, and there’s no formal entry. This is a casual beach house. But the connection to the outdoors was crucial. You can see right through from the front to the back.” The glass fence around the lagoon-side deck amplifies connections to the water.

The house itself is an inverted, almost L shape, with public areas—kitchen, living, dining, on one side, and the bedroom wing on the other. Cedar siding treated with a bleaching oil clads the exterior, and the flat roof is rimmed in 316 stainless steel, a product that resists rust and is often used in marine building. Decks are Ipe.

The architect used durable, simple materials throughout the three-bedroom, two-bathroom house’s interior. “We tried to make it all functionally smart,” says Smith. Floors are concrete, the ceiling is paneled with cedar, and custom furnishings designed by CCS, such as walnut bookshelves, a white oak dining table, a white oak island with ample storage in the kitchen, and bunk beds in the kids’ bedroom add to the coherence of the house. Articulated skylights on both sides of the kitchen bring in patterned sunlight throughout the day. Storage areas under the waterside decks provide places to put beach gear and small boats.

On top of it all, the house has zero energy bills. An absence of air conditioning, photovoltaics on the roof that support the split-system heat pump and all electricity, two 4-foot by 8-foot hot water panels for the solar water system, and a xeriscaped landscape with deciduous trees support the Platinum rating, given by Marin County’s point-rating system, which is similar to LEED. Smith admits that it’s easier for a home that’s not used seven days a week to have no energy bills. “For a grid-tied house, every day you’re not there you feed more energy into the grid.” Smith’s clients use the house each weekend, so there are many days during the year to feed that hungry grid, and a lot of free energy ends up flowing back.

And speaking of getting energy back, Smith says he’s lucky enough to have a fairly open invitation to the house whenever he can take the time to enjoy it. “And they cook for me!” he says, modestly.

By David Dillon

The New Acropolis Museum, Bernard Tschumi’s minimalist counterpoint to one of the world’s great archaeological sites, officially opens June 20, eight years after he won an international competition to design it, and three decades after the idea for a new Acropolis museum first surfaced.

“The design was chosen for its simple, clear, and beautiful solution that is in accord with the beauty and classical simplicity of the museum’s unique exhibits,” says professor Dimitrios Pandermalis, president of the private organization overseeing the project. The original Acropolis museum, completed in 1873, will reopen as a gallery.

Tschumi’s challenge was to honor the historic importance of the site while accommodating the demands of contemporary Athens, with its hellish traffic, swarming tourists, and frequent seismic rumblings.

“People said, ‘You have to be contextual; it ought to be in the Doric style of traditional Greek temples,’” the architect recalls. “Forget it!” he answered. “You can’t do Doric as well as the ancient Greeks did it. Instead, I aimed for the same precision, the same clarity as the original temple.”

Tschumi’s museum is a three-story concrete, marble and glass trapezoid, topped by a canted glass rectangle containing sections of the original Parthenon frieze.

The first level, floating above the ruins of an ancient Athenian city, includes a lobby, temporary exhibition galleries, and retail spaces. A glass floor gives visitors close-up views of the excavated city, which was discovered in 2002 and forced major changes to the original design.

The second and third levels, connected by curving glass ramps, house the museum’s permanent collection of 4,000 objects from the Archaic to the Late Roman period, including many sculptures that once decorated the temples of the Acropolis. All are seen in natural light, as originally intended. Greek officials hope that the new museum will accelerate the return of other lost treasures, especially the fabled Elgin marbles that have resided in London’s British Museum since 1817.

The museum culminates in the glass-walled Parthenon Gallery, which Tschumi rotated 23 degrees to parallel the Parthenon itself, only 800 feet away. Here visitors can enjoy panoramic views that encompass Athens’ past and present, ancient history and modern.

At 226,000 square feet, the New Acropolis Museum provides ten times more exhibition space than its 19th century predecessor, while including a bar, restaurant, shop and other essential amenities for contemporary museums. Total construction costs approached $175 million, a huge investment that officials hope will pay off not only in increased tourism but also in the reclamation of Greece’s cultural patrimony.

When Mark Baker started his small Albuquerque, New Mexico, firm, Baker Architecture + Design, in 2002, he focused on small-scale projects: home additions, kitchen remodels, garages, and the like. In more recent years, Baker’s work has grown to include restaurants, spas, high-end custom homes, and elementary schools for Albuquerque’s public school system. Then the recession hit. “We had three big projects canceled at the same time,” Baker says. “February was horrible. We didn’t have any jobs that month.”

Baker and his two full-time employees went to a four-day work week, and when projects started trickling back in, they were the kinds of jobs Baker thought he had moved away from: mostly home additions and garages. “We’re doing jobs we’re overqualified for,” Baker says. “But it’s nice to have a job of any kind.”

Baker’s story is typical. Architecture firms in the western United States have been hit hard by the financial crisis. Work has dried up, and many firms have responded by layoffs and other cost-cutting measures. Commercial work, in particular, has fallen off dramatically, so firms are turning to public sector projects to stay afloat. In March, the Architectural Billings Index for the West was 36.1, down from February’s score of 37.4, but still higher than November’s all-time low of 34.9. (A score above 50 on the index indicates an increase in billings; below 50, a decrease.)

“What we’re going through is nothing short of brutal,” says Herbert Nadel, FAIA, chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-based firm Nadel. “It’s far and away the worst I’ve seen in my 48 years in the business.”

In 2007, Nadel had 260 employees in seven offices in California, Nevada, and Arizona, and the firm ranked No. 70 on Architectural Record’s list of the Top 150 Architecture Firms. The bulk of its work was retail and residential, two sectors that have seen dramatic declines throughout much of the West. With new construction at a standstill, Nadel closed its Ontario, California office and laid off nearly half of its staff. “And we may have to reduce even more,” Nadel says. Salaries of remaining employees have been reduced by 20 percent, and all bonuses, profit-sharing, and retirement contributions have been eliminated. “We’re in survival mode,” Nadel says.

A thousand miles to the north, in Seattle, global giant NBBJ has reduced its local staff by 30 positions, to 386; companywide, the firm has eliminated 7.5 percent of its workforce and now has about 680 employees. Managing partner Scott Wyatt, FAIA, says a number of the firm’s projects were simply put on hold—instead of being canceled outright—when the economy tanked. In January, NBBJ was in the process of designing three new office buildings for Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, campus when the software company announced a series of cost-cutting measures. The Redmond buildings were postponed.

“It’s really hard to have a project put on hold through an afternoon phone call and suddenly have 30 people with nothing to do,” Wyatt says.

In Denver, OZ Architecture has laid off about a third of its employees, leaving a staff of about 150. Professional development has been curtailed, and hours for some employees have been reduced. RNL Design has gone from about 180 employees a year ago to the current 138. For both firms, the biggest drop has been in the commercial sector. “The commercial mixed-use market is pretty much gone,” says Michael Brendle, FAIA, RNL’s director of design. The firm has found a “safe haven” in government projects, including buildings on military bases around the country and maintenance facilities for bus and light-rail systems. “Those are the kinds of things that are getting funding,” Brendle says.

OZ, too, is focusing more on public-sector projects, such as libraries and schools. “The size of job we will consider has definitely gotten smaller,” says managing principal Jim Bershof, AIA. “But we’re definitely happy to have some of those projects.”

One western firm that hasn’t had to lay off any employees is Seattle’s Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects, winner of the 2009 AIA Architecture Firm Award. With 85 employees, the firm specializes in museums and high-end homes, often built for art collectors. More than half of its work is in the Seattle area, but the firm has done projects throughout the United States and around the world. “If we didn’t have any foreign projects, we’d be in trouble,” says principal Jim Olson, FAIA. And while the firm has seen about 10 projects canceled in the last six months, enough new projects have come along to keep everyone busy. And in the current economy, no net loss is about the best one can hope for.

“Last fall,” Olson says, “we were really, really worried. But now we’re cautiously optimistic. I think we’ll be OK. We’re just taking it one month at a time.”

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Reuse, renew, recycle, renovate! When New Westminster, British Columbia, couple Jeanine Harper and Les Linfoot, and their three sons, aged 18 to 26, needed more space, they decided to build onto their 2,500-square-foot 1950s ranch-style house. “It was an L-shaped, low-slung, post-and-beam house,” says local architect Randy Bens, who did the redesign. “The house was so neutral, and it had this nice red oak flooring which was in very good shape. We knew that we could update and expand the home but still keep a lot of the existing structure and walls.”

New Westminster is about a 20-minute drive from Vancouver, and Harper and Linfoot’s house sits atop a hill in a suburban area rich with mid-century Modernist architecture. “I grew up in an architect-built, Modernist house,” says Harper, “so I like that aesthetic and wanted our house to echo the sensibilities of the neighborhood.” Linfoot, an artist, says he wanted their house “to move into at least the 20th century and maybe even the 21st.” Like Harper, he appreciates a lack of clutter and smooth transitions between inside and outside spaces.

Bens understood that with three boys in the house (for the moment, at least), Harper and Linfoot needed private space. His redesign created a 1,000-square-foot upstairs addition comprising a painting studio, master suite, and deck. “Architecturally,” he says, “the goal was to knit together the old and the new with simple gestures and materials that would be sympathetic to their context, yet fresh.”

Zoning laws wouldn’t allow Bens to create an upper addition that would fill out the footprint of the existing house, but that was not his intention. “The climate here is very gray and rainy, the light very soft. We wanted to be sure light would get into all parts of the house,” he explains. Bens organized the addition’s massing by creating chunky new volumes to sit on existing structure, but added a double height to the downstairs living room, and created upstairs decks that would take advantage of views. To shade the south-facing double-height living room, the architect created a horizontal screen of stained timber and anodized aluminum for the exterior. Placed at a 90-degree angle, the screen protects the entry from rain and sun, and adds a horizontal element to counter the vertical nature of the added volume. Vertical cedar siding, gently sloping roofs, exposed glued laminated beams and rafters respond to the aesthetic of the neighboring mid-century post and beam houses. To add a contemporary element, Bens installed zinc panels above and alongside existing window openings, aligning them with new openings above.

Inside, the architect retained the original floors (and added recycled fir flooring on the second level) and extended neutral white walls though the house as a palette for Linfoot’s art collection. New millwork, including built-ins, was constructed from a mixture of Appleply and Plyboo. Rounding out the sustainable features for this house that has no air conditioning, the upstairs bathroom incorporates Paperstone, a tile made of recycled paper, on the counter and tubs, and a composite recycled tile is used on the floor and shower walls. A new steel stair connects the two floors, and decks are made of pressure-treated cedar. “It’s all very simple,” says Bens modestly. “Wood floors, white walls—it’s hard to screw that up.”

Harper and Linfoot have a bit more to say. “The view, the whole upstairs, it’s hugely pleasurable,” says Harper. “More than just light, there’s a lightness to the house that is such a nice thing. It flows, there’s so much space, yet it’s also quite cozy.” Says Linfoot, “Cookie cutter houses don’t appeal to us, and while we know the house reflects features of others in the neighborhood, we’re also surprised by the people who we see standing on the street and staring.” But for Linfoot, it’s not just all about his house. “We wanted to use a young architect for this project,” he says. “It was important for us to be part of the patronage of someone with talent who’s just starting out.”

Harper and Linfoot now have the house of their dreams. Whether their adult sons leave them to it remains to be seen.

50 years ago when Peter Zumthor was training as a cabinet maker it would have felt inconceivable that he would join the architectural elite to win the Pritzker Prize for Architecture. But at the age of 65, this remote possibility has become reality.

Established by the Pritzker family of Chicago through their Hyatt Foundation in 1979, the Pritzker Prize is often equated to the Nobel Prize for architecture honouring living architects with talent, vision and commitment producing significant and consistent contributions to humanity through architecture. Recipients of the award receive a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion which will be bestowed upon Zumthor at a ceremony on 29 May in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Previous winners of the award include Christian de Portzamparc, Richard Meier, Renzo Piano and Zaha Hadid.

Zumthor's humble beginnings in Switzerland have flavoured his work throughout his career. “For 30 years he has been based in the remote village of Haldenstein in the Swiss mountains, removed from the flurry of activity of the international architectural scene,” said the jury. “There, together with a small team, he develops buildings of great integrity –untouched by fad or fashion.”

Zumthor is the author of many outstanding yet modest buildings in Switzerland and beyond. Empathy for local culture and landscape is expressed in his architecture as a result of the direct integration of the community in his works. The Field Chapel in Eifel, Germany, was commissioned by farmer Hermann-Josef Scheidtweiler and his wife Trudel and largely constructed by them, with the help of friends, acquaintances and craftsmen on one of their fields above the village. The interior of the chapel room was formed out of 112 tree trunks, which were configured like a tent. In twenty four working days, layer after layer of concrete, each layer 50 cm thick, was poured and rammed around the tentlike structure.

Other works include Kolumba Art Museum of the Cologne Archdiocese, Swiss Sound Box, the Swiss Pavilion for Expo 2000 and Thermal Bath in Vals, Switzerland.

“In Zumthor’s skillful hands, like those of the consummate craftsman, materials from cedar shingles to sandblasted glass are used in a way that celebrates their own unique qualities, all in the service of an architecture of permanence,” reads the jury comments.

“The same penetrating vision and subtle poetry are evident in his writings as well, which, like his portfolio of buildings, have inspired generations of students. In paring down architecture to its barest yet most sumptuous essentials, he has reaffirmed architecture’s indispensable place in a fragile world. For all of these reasons, Peter Zumthor is the recipient of the 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize.”

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