Knitknot Architecture, in collaboration with nonprofit group Seeds of Learning, has designed — and israising funds to build — the El Jicarito School. Located in El Jicarito, a tiny village in Nicaragua, the school will serve 27 children who currently do not have a school to attend.
The low-cost school design aims to bring the community together through collaborative construction methods, the use of local materials, and the creation of a new educational landscape that will enhance creativity.
Overall, the school will feature two classrooms, a multipurpose space, and a public square/playground area. Both of the classrooms are conceived as flexible spaces, in an effort to “stimulate and promote interactive teaching and classes with different formats.”
The floors will be made of poured colored concrete, the walls will be earth-bags, and the columns and beams will be made out of reinforced concrete with steel framing, all as a part of an experimental and learning-based building process that will help the community come together.
Part of the land needed to build the school will be donated by the municipal government.
Luna (moon) collection is inspired by the moon’s mysteries. it is constructed of Nebulite, a specially developed material made of resins and fibers, that mimics the uneven, softly luminescent qualities of the moon’s surface.
Canopy dimension: Ø 25 cm
Flexible stem dimension: 100 cm
Base dimension: 16x12x5 cm
Materials: cast iron, steel, nylon, nebulite
Bulb: E14 (max 42w CFL) rec.LED 6w
Outer colors: white
Base colors: white, black
Go to the in-es artdesign website for more information
SHoP has won Landmarks Preservation Commission approval to build Brooklyn’s tallest tower at 340 Flatbush Avenue Extension, reports New York Yimby. Located on the same block of the former Dime Savings Bank, an individual and interior landmark, SHoP’s proposal calls for a 73-story, 1,066 foot-tall mixed-use tower. The proposal required LPC-approval because the architects want to merge the tower’s lobby with the bank and convert the atrium into a new retail component. The site’s relationship to the bank building encouraged the architects to develop a design and material choices that are heavily influenced by the proposed tower’s smaller, but no less grand, neighbor.
As noted in the LPC presentation by SHoP partner Gregg Pasquarelli, the bank is on a triangular lot, but it resolves this plot condition through inlaid hexagonal motifs on the marble floor within. Considering this lead SHoP to design its tower as a series of gradual setbacks on six sides that echo the floor patterns of the bank interior. While there were some concerns raised about the removal of teller stations in the banking hall (a restoration project for that space will occur in tandem to the tower’s construction) most members of the commission thought SHoP’s presentation was exceptional.
De Fu Junior High School is located on De Fu road, Jiading new town, Shanghai. It is a campus which can accommodate 24 junior high school classes. On the north side, it is adjacent to the De Fu primary school, and for the south side, there is normal residential area .There are two buildings on campus respectively: the main teaching building, gymnasium and canteen.
The main teaching building which sits on the west part of the site can hold classrooms, office facilities for teachers, and ancillary facilities. The building has north-south teaching classrooms and east-west special classrooms. It descends towards the sun from three floors to one floor and then generates plentiful roof platform area. Four barrier-free ramps connect the main teaching building with gymnasium and canteen.
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Plan
Four courtyards.
The space of courtyard has always been the essence of Chinese traditional architecture. When deals with the relationship between architecture and site, the architect subtly designs four courtyards. Inspired by the culture of Chinese characters, these four courtyards present themselves as a Tian-font layout. The dimension of the four courtyard is 25m on each side and each of them has its own form and they connect each other with the ground floor. They are like four seasons, students can feel the time changes, sunrise and sunset in these four courtyards.
Sunken courtyard.
The elevation of the canteen’s outdoor terrace is 1.5m below the elevation of the main teaching building outdoor terrace. Here the architect creates a sunken courtyard in which the students can rest on the steps after a meal.
Although restricted by the shape and the size of the site, the architect expects that the building can provide a free walk place for the school teacher and students. The main teaching building has an inside–outside double corridor design. Besides basic vertical transportation, the architect also designs abundant roaming traffic system. The free stretching corridor combines itself intimately with the scattered roof platform, they blur the boundary of the inside and outside, and make walking experience more interesting. The architect hopes that the use can perceive the environment unexpectedly and understand the nature.
The gymnasium provides a semi interior basketball court, it can also be used as an exhibition hall and auditorium. The vertical shading devices adopt the cast-in-place concrete plate with a rectangular cross section. And the roof is a well-shaped beam structure with cast-in-place hanging concrete plate. The section is trapezoidal, and the minimum thickness of each concrete plate is 15 cm.
Each square classroom is designed with a locker room for the students. And the architect also conducts a daylight factor analysis for the square classroom to ensure that the children are able to receive appropriate daylight in the classroom.
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Diagram
The external wall of dry clay is a response to the traditional external wall style of Shanghai and also an attempt to the durability of low cost building materials.
Archy Naija 