Designed by Tokyo studio Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects, Nowhere but Sajima forms part of the Nowhere Resort, a series of weekly rentable holiday homes on the Miura peninsula of Kanagawa Prefecture.

The house is located on the harbour of a small fishing village. It has a triangular plan, with rooms on three storeys.

Each of the windows lines up with a different room and the ceiling of every room follows the profile of its window.

The architects describe the rooms as "thin tube-like spaces" with views directed towards the ocean. "We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship," they explain.

Sliding doors and screens allow different rooms to open out to one another, plus a circular cutaway provides views between the first-floor study and the storey above.

See more holiday homes on Dezeen, including a set of apartments above a yacht house on the Crimean coastline and a weekend fishing retreat in Germany.

Here are more details from Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects:

Nowhere but Sajima

Cutting resort environment out of urban environment

Nowhere resort is the resort program that is renting out weekly vacation house. Suggesting new urban lifestyle by making shorter the distance to weekend house from standard 3 hours up to 1 hour. The environment must get close to urban when shorten the distance, the issue comes to how to cut off resort environment out of there. Therefore Nowhere but Sajima comes to build long and thin tube-like spaces that bundle them into one home unit. The tube-like spaces are facing toward the ocean and at the same time intercept the sight from the next condominium. The building is controlling both privacy and scenery.

A home for guests

Nowhere but Sajima provides a temporary 'home' for its guests. The weekly rental service provided by Nowhere Resort is a relatively new method of operating resort properties in Japan, and allows different tenants the opportunity to inhabit a 'home' on a weekly basis. While the weekly term is short compared to a standard monthly rental and long compared to a hotel stay, this in-between length accommodates a new diversity of uses of a 'home'. Serving as a space for exhibitions, as a classroom or for wedding parties, the unit easily adapts to the imagination and invention of the tenant and in doing so also re-defines the range of activities that can take place in the 'home'. As well as accommodating the functions of work and business, the 'home' again becomes the space of many life events beside the basic function of 'inhabitance'. In acquiring a new program for use, the 'home' regains the richness of activity that can take place all around of life.

The building, a triangular block composed of tube-like volumes heading to the ocean, stands on a point of reclaimed land in a small fishing village. While the site meets the seawall and directly faces the sea, it is also faces other buildings across the water. To provide adequate privacy without the use of curtains, narrow tube-shaped spaces were bundled together and angled to provide openings toward the sea. The orientation of these tubes naturally blocks the line of sight from the adjacent apartments and while gazing down the length of the tube from inside only the ocean can be seen. While providing an escape from the tide of urbanism characterising what we normally call a 'resort', the design still maintains the key aspects of the resort experience. We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship.

Location: Yokosuka Kanagawa, JAPAN
Principal Use: HouseStructure: RC 3 stories

Site Area: 132.09 sq.m
Building Area: 63.88 sq.m
Total Floor Area: 176.65 sq.m
Max Height: 9,459 mm

Architect: Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects
Client: Nowhere resort
Structural Engineer: Akira Suzuki/ASA
Services: EOS+
Electric Services: comodo
General Contractor: Heisei Construction

The post Nowhere but Sajima by
Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Located on the site of a former factory, Garden Terrace Miyazaki comprises a single two-storey building that features bamboo-clad walls and a large sloping roof with overhanging eaves.

A faceted timber canopy shelters the entrance to the hotel, leading through to a reception where guests are faced with a view of the courtyard.

Kengo Kuma and Associates designed this space as a "calm and tranquil environment", where a landscape of bamboo trees and pools of water provide a scenic setting to the glazed wedding chapel at its centre.

Restaurants and event rooms surround the other sides of the courtyard, while guest rooms are located on the first floor.

Kengo Kuma has completed several projects in recent months, including a timber-clad primary school in Tokyo, an installation of stone and water in Milan and an experimental house in Hokkaidō. See more architecture by Kengo Kuma.

Photography is by Fujinari Miyazaki.

Here's a short description from Kengo Kuma and Associates:

Garden Terrace Miyazaki

The hotel was built at a vast site near JR Miyazaki station, where a factory once stood. Around it houses and aparrments spread in no particular order.

Facilities of the hotel - guest rooms, banquet room and restaurants are arranged to circle the courtyard.

Loosely sloped roof came out as the result of each function underneath. It wraps the entire building - two-storey structure under the deep eaves.

Bamboo is planted and water is laid out in and out of the hotel and its courtyard, providing a calm and tranquil environment that stretches even to the residential area.

Completion: September 2012
Main use: hotel
Total floor area: 4562.04 sqm

The post Garden Terrace Miyazaki by
Kengo Kuma and Associates appeared first on Dezeen.

The facility is proposed for the industrial district of Żerań, where a series of channels transport water between the city and Zegrze Reservoir, and a number of abandoned factories, warehouses and silos stand empty.

Moko Architects has designed a ten-storey structure where diving and skydiving activities can take place inside the cylinders of the converted silos. The first will be filled entirely with water to allow divers to plunge to depths of 25 metres, while the second will contain an underwater "cave" at its base and a skydiving tunnel at its top.

Shipping containers will be stacked up around the outside of the silos to provide offices and training facilities, as well as hostel accommodation, an exhibition area, a reading room, sports shops and a summer cafe. Balcony terraces will also be created on each floor by the irregular arrangement of the containers.

Construction is due to start in 2015.

Other architectural projects that use shipping containers include offices for an organic farm in China, a hotel in Germany and a sea-facing observation deck in South Korea. See more shipping container architecture.

Here's some more information from Moko Architects:

Modernising the existing silos at the Żerański channel into a Diving and Indoor Skydiving Centre open all year round

The area for the investment is located ca. 12 km away from the centre of Warsaw. This is a part of a house factory in Żerań which operated in the past. Today, there are abandoned halls, warehouses and non-developed area. Main facilities include wholesale warehouses of construction materials and other products. The Żerański channel flows through the entire area, which creates a unique municipal landscape.

The collection of elements described above has a huge potential. The channel is a great water communication route between the City and the Zegrze Reservoir which provides the opportunity of doing water sports and staying active. The remains of the factories, warehouses and silos may be attractive for investors interested in their modernisation into lofts, offices, studios or erecting new buildings which will interline into the surrounding landscape.

This area is also becoming a popular place for amateurs of extreme sports, artists or people who like exploring abandoned buildings.

Our design assumes development of a Diving and Indoor Skydiving Centre open all year round in the old silos where bulk cement used to be stored in the past. The existing facility is a perfect base for this investment and will be the only place in Poland where people wishing to learn the skills of diving will have the opportunity to safely train at the depth of 25m under control. The well located in one of the silos is connected to the "cave" of the other cylinder. This is an ideal place to train wreck diving. The diameter of the well is 7m.

Apart from the cave, the second silo will feature a technical area as well as an Indoor Skydiving Centre. This place will make dreams about flying come true. In the "tube" where air will flow at high speeds, you will be able to safely train skydiving.

The Diving and Indoor Skydiving Centre will feature additional functions for people who will only visit the centre for a few hours with their families as well as for organised groups coming for training sessions lasting a couple of days.

The ground floor will feature the entrance area with exhibition space, professional magazines reading area, external café open in the summer season as well as a workshop. Level 1 will house sports stores. Level 2 and 3 will feature offices and administration. Level 4 will feature a hostel for indoor skydivers while level 5 will house training rooms and changing rooms for skydivers as well as the entrance to the area where the practical training of indoor skydiving is conducted. Level 6 will house a hostel for divers, level 7 will feature training and presentation rooms for divers while on level 8 there will be changing rooms separate for women and men. The will also be a buffer zone for divers to directly access the place where they start diving. At the same level, the facility will also feature a warm-up room. In the retained control room area at level 9 a small bar with a view onto the city panorama is designed. There will be terraces on all levels where you can relax after training while watching the industrial scenery intertwined with the Żerański channel.

The modules forming the space for additional functions are applied onto the existing structure of the silo walls looking as if they were growing on them. They are made of light self-supporting steel structure located on both sides and connected by a staircase. They comprise system cubes operating on the basis of single containers which are relatively cheap to manufacture and easy to rearrange in case of the need of changing the functional arrangement of the entire project. Polycarbonate plates will be the covering material through which the structure will be visible.

Completion of this project will set a direction for the development of this district and may become an alternative cultural centre in this part of Warsaw.

The post Diving and Indoor Skydiving Centre
by Moko Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Both Rem Koolhaas' firm and rivals BIG are presenting their proposals to the Miami Beach City Commission today.

OMA is working alongside property developers Tishman and UIA, architects TVSdesign and landscape architects MVVA and Raymond Jungles, who together form a team called South Beach ACE.

"The convention centre site is a total aberration in the urban fabric of the city," says Dan Tishman, chairman of Tishman, in the movie (above). "It just doesn't live up to the standards of Miami."

The team's vision includes building an 800-room hotel on top of the existing convention centre, which is the location for the annual Art Basel - Miami Beach and Design Miami trade fairs.

The convention centre would also be expanded and reorganised, rotating it 90 degrees and placing its main entrance to the south, where it would face a row of new and old buildings, including the renovated Jackie Gleason Theater.

To the north would be a network of shaded green spaces and a large grassy hill covering a loading area for trucks and a parking garage.

Other OMA projects we've reported on lately include the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, which is due to complete next month in the Chinese city, and a masterplan for a new urban development south of Bordeaux, France – see all architecture by OMA.

Rival shortlisted firm BIG has also unveiled plans for two twisted apartment blocks in Coconut Grove, Miami, while architect John Pawson recently designed 26 luxury apartments for Miami Beach – see all projects in Miami.

Here's some more information from South Beach ACE:

Sitting on 52 acres within the vibrant and unique community that is Miami Beach, an outdated convention centre acts as an urban blockade – inactive when conventions are not in town, disruptive to adjoining neighborhoods and inhibiting connections to Lincoln Road and surrounding communities. Our masterplan resolves each of these issues through a series of ingenious yet simple moves:

» We conceptually rotate the convention center, reorienting the site to allow for east-west neighbourhood connectivity and a southerly orientation for both convention centre and hotel guests

» We concentrate the density at the centre of the site and make the revamped convention centre and its meeting and ballroom space contiguous with the hotel – a feature that meeting planners love

» We reimagine the area's existing assets: the Jackie Gleason Theater, the Carl Fisher Clubhouse, City Hall, the 17th Street Garage and 17th Street itself are all maintained and transformed to better engage their surroundings while keeping the character of Miami Beach

» We fill the rest of the site with public amenities and programmed uses appropriate to activate the space 7 days a week, 365 days a year

In short, our plan upgrades the convention centre into a best-in-class facility and weaves the entire convention centre site into the fabric of Miami Beach. It will feel both new and like it was always there.

The post Miami Beach Convention Center
by OMA appeared first on Dezeen.

Bjarke Ingels' firm will present its proposal to the Miami Beach City Commission today, where it will go head-to-head with a rival design by Dutch firm OMA.

BIG produced its proposal in a team called Portman CMC, which includes property developers Portman Holdings and CMC Group, architects John Portman & Associates, West8 and Fentress Architects, and circus entertainers Cirque du Soleil, who would provide an event space on the site.

Miami Beach Convention Center is currently "a dead black hole of asphalt in the heart of one the most beautiful and lively cities in America," the team explain. "Our mission is to bring Miami Beach back to the Convention Center."

The proposal is centred around the creation of a public square, with paths, plazas, gardens and parks connecting the convention centre with the surrounding buildings.

The convention centre itself would be given a green roof, which would function as an event space and a location for annually commissioned artwork.

The Jackie Gleason Theater would be renovated and its street level lobbies, restaurants and cafe made publicly accessible, while a new museum for Latin American culture would be built alongside it. The proposal also includes a hotel and several blocks of apartments.

Both BIG and rival team OMA are also on the shortlist to design a centre for the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Sweden, while earlier this year BIG unveiled plans for two twisted apartment blocks in Coconut Grove, Miami – see all architecture by BIG.

Other Miami projects we've featured lately include architect John Pawson's 26 luxury apartments for Miami Beach and a multi-storey car park by Herzog & de Meuron that hosts parties, yoga classes and weddings – see all projects in Miami.

Here's some more information from BIG:

BIG together with West 8, Fentress, JPA and developers Portman CMC proposes Miami Beach Square as the centerpiece of their 52 acre Convention Center.

Miami Beach is a unique city in so many ways. It is one of the youngest cities in America – and perhaps right now one of the most vibrant and dynamic. Its streetscape is characterised by a lively walkable urban fabric with a friendly human scaled environment under the cool shade of tropical trees and art deco canopies - except at the convention center. It is a dead black hole of asphalt in the heart of one the most beautiful and lively cities in America.

Our mission is to bring Miami Beach back to the Convention Center – and to imagine an architecture and an urban space unique to the climate and culture of Miami Beach.

We propose to roll out an urban fabric of paths and plazas, parks and gardens that forms an archipelago of urban oases throughout the site. At the heart of it we introduce a central square to become the pivoting point of the entire neighbourhood, becoming the front door to the convention centre and the convention hotel, a front lawn to the revitalised Jackie Gleason Theater, a town square for the city hall, an outdoor arena for the Latin American Cultural Museum, and the red carpet for the big botanical ball room.

"We have devised a strategy that combines urban planning and landscape design to create a neighborhood characterised by human scale, pedestrian connections, shaded spaces with public oriented programmes lining the streets and squares. A neighbourhood that, depending on the season, the weekday, or even the time of day can be perceived as a lively downtown neighbourhood or an inviting public park." Bjarke Ingels, creative director, BIG

The square creates a series of intuitive connections across the site – a diagonal that connects the Soundscape to the Botanical Gardens and Holocaust Memorial. A north-south connection joins the Collins Canal to Lincoln Road and naturally channels the flow of convention visitors to the liveliness of Lincoln Road. A green network of public spaces that stitches together all of the adjacent neighbourhoods – formerly separated by the convention centre – into a complete and coherent community for both visitors and residents. All public programmes old and new come together on the square. All great cities have a great square – this will be Miami Beach Square.

"Rather than scattering all the programme across the 52 acre site we have decided to concentrate it around the center piece of our public realm - Miami Beach Square bringing focus to the renovated Jackie Gleason Theater, the entrance of the convention center and for the first time ever creating a worthy civic presence to Miami Beach City Hall." Jamie Maslyn Larsen, West 8, Creator of Soundscape Park

By popular demand we have found a way to preserve and enhance the architecture and programming of the Jackie Gleason Theater. By making it all public at the street level – opening up lobbies, restaurants and cafes on all sides – we make the Gleason a lively centerpiece in this new neighborhood. Towards the Square we propose to extend the fly tower with a performing arts centre with various spaces for rehearsal and offering a visual connection to the public. Adjacent to the Jackie Gleason Theater sits the new Latin American Cultural Museum consisting of a base of public programmes opening up on the square. The building form creates a covered shaded event space on the square blurring the transition between inside and outside.

Today the Miami Beach City Hall is almost like a leftover wedged between random neighbours surrounded by traffic. Our proposal places it right in the middle of the town square with ample space for public expression and at the heart of communal life. The Miami Beach City Hall and Botanical Ballroom bookend the Square making it a natural extension of the civic activities of city hall. To the north the botanical ballroom opens up allowing for beautiful views of the botanical gardens and the memorial. The Ballroom has an entrance to the south and to the north allowing for seamless connectivity to the convention centre – under the shade and shelter of the canopies.

Rather than being the hermetic monoprogrammatic box that the Miami Beach Convention Center is today – a single programme at the size of an urban block - we propose to consider the Convention Center an actual urban block complete with different programmes, grown together to form a continuous architecture. A gradual transition from public to private, cultural to civic, conference to residential turns a stroll around the block into an experience of continuous variation. Along the entire west adjacent to the various gardens and the new square - the main entrances to the Convention Center and Conference Center occupy the ground. The hotel lobby spans the entire south elevation in continuation of the Convention Center lobby. The hotel façade as pulled back, forming a cascade of terraces for the south facing hotel rooms – decreasing the perceived height seen from the Gleason.

The roof of the Convention Center is framed by a green roof drawing the outline of the urban block – framing the hotel gardens and the roof parking interspersed with shade giving landscapes. As a reoccurring annual event we propose to sponsor an art foundation that will deliver a roof art piece to cover the remaining roof surface turning it into a giant ever-changing canvas seen from the air as well as the roof terrace of the hotel. An ever changing giant canvas that will annually challenge contemporary artists with an architectural scale canvas – seen from the roofs and penthouses of adjacent buildings, from aeroplanes and Google Earth.

"Realising that a challenge that seemed to be driven by two incompatible agendas was actually the opportunity to create a convention centre district that is not only for convention-goers but, more importantly, for residents." Jack Portman, Portman Holdings and JPA

The post Miami Beach Convention Center
by BIG appeared first on Dezeen.