With construction set to begin later this month, the building will be the home for a pair of university professors within a neighbourhood that also features houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan.

The site was formally formerly the garden of two residences, so the architects designed a building that would reference this. "This house in essence is a garden wall," Thomas Phifer told Dezeen. "It's extremely simple and humble, with not a lot of embellishment."

Built from an assortment of reclaimed bricks, Madison House will comprise a free-flowing plan loosely divided up into four wings with cedar floors and white walls. There won't be many partitions, but rooms will be naturally divided by the swelling and constricting shapes.

Phifer explains: "The couple live a very simple and uncluttered life, so they want something that is very minimal and expresses their desire for simplicity."

Frameless windows will be set forward from the brickwork and finished in mirrored glass, preventing views into rooms from the surrounding garden, while circular skylights will be dotted intermittently across the roof.

"We wanted sporadic skylights that light up very particular little places," added the architect. "They won't be centred in the rooms at all, but organised according to the kind of informal spirit of the walls."

Above: site plan - click for larger image

New York office Thomas Phifer and Partners also recently completed a college of architecture at Clemson University, South Carolina. See more architecture in the US.

Above: floor plan - click for larger image

Here are some project details from Thomas Phifer and Partners:

Madison House

Architect: Thomas Phifer and Partners
Structural Engineer: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Geotechnical Engineer: Nummelin Testing Services
General Contractor: Poulsen Enterprises

Location: Madison, Wisconsin
Years: 2011-Present
Client: Private
Size: 2900 sf
Project Team: Thomas Phifer, Eric Richey, John Bassett, Anja Turowski

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and Partners appeared first on Dezeen.

The Buda Art Centre accommodates studio and exhibition spaces for artists in residence across all three floors of the old Budafabriek, the last remaining structure of the Desmet-Dejaeghere textile factory on Buda Island.

The architects were keen to retain traces of the building's history, so they left much of the interior unchanged and concentrated on inserting just two new pentagonal spaces.

The first pentagon is the pale-brick entrance pavilion, which contrasts with the dark red tones of the existing factory buildings. The structure twists away from the neighbouring facades and points out towards the road, but it has no roof, encouraging anyone inside to look straight up to the sky.

"The shape [of the pavilion] creates a friction between the existing buildings and the new intervention," 51N4E's Paul Steinbrück told Dezeen. "Even though it gets very close to the surrounding buildings, it doesn't touch them at any point. It is not an open space and not a building."

Above: photograph is by Paul Steinbrueck

For the second pentagon, the architects hollowed out a space at the centre of the factory to create a triple-height atrium connecting all three floors. A new staircase winds around the walls, while clerestory glazing and a large skylight brings natural light through to the studios and galleries. "The vertical space creates a visual understanding of the building," added Steinbrück.

Stairs also lead up to the roof the building, where an expansive roof terrace offers a view of the River Leie and the city skyline beyond.

"The Buda Art Centre is a new type of cultural space," conclude the architects. "Making reference to its past, it remains a workshop of production. The warm palette of colours and the series of rather informal spaces invite people to appropriate and discover the building for their own production, exhibition and casual interaction."

Above: photograph is by Paul Steinbrueck

Also this week, Czech studio Atelier Hoffman revealed images of a riverside coal mill converted into a studio and exhibition space. Other artists' studios we've featured include a pointy gallery and studio in Japan and a series of cabin-like studios on a picturesque Canadian island. See more artists' studios on Dezeen.

Photography is by Filip Dujardin, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here's some more information from 51N4E:

Buda Art Centre
51N4E

The last remaining textile factory on Buda Island - an area destined to become the cultural heart of the city - has been transformed into studios and exhibition spaces for artists in residence. This large volume, situated in the middle of a city block, has been adapted through two main interventions.

Above: photograph is by Paul Steinbrueck

The first hollows out a large void in the centre of the building, bringing daylight deep into the vast floor plan. This pentagonal void houses a public staircase that gives access to a diverse range of spaces on four levels: a laboratory for manufacturing, multifunctional spaces of varying sizes and lighting conditions, music venues and a roof terrace. The biggest part of the structure is reused. Besides saving resources, the reuse allows for a large cultural building within a limited budget.

The second intervention adds an open pavilion as an entrance hall from the street. Built from the yellow brick discovered in the original interior, this pavilion becomes the new facade of the complex: the tip of the iceberg. The pavilion itself functions as an antechamber, giving a foretaste of events inside.

The Buda Art Centre is a new type of cultural space. Making reference to its past, it remains a workshop of production. The materials and details make it an approachable space for all kinds of activities and users. The warm palette of colours and the series of rather informal spaces invite people to appropriate and discover the building for their own production, exhibition, and casual interaction.

While the majority of the building is hidden from its surrounding context, the roof terrace provides a sudden confrontation with the city of Kortrijk. The building is a tool to look, not an object to look at. It avoids becoming an image but instead creates an environment.

Project name: Buda Art Centre
Name of building in use: Budafabriek
Location: Kortrijk, Belgium

Programme: exhibition & event facilities, artists' studios
Built surface: 4.240 m²
Budget: € 2.000.000

Design period: 2005 (competition) – 2007
Construction period: 2010 – 2012

Design team: Johan Anrys, Freek Persyn, Peter Swinnen, Tine Cooreman, Aline Neirynck, Bob De Wispelaere, Karel Verstraeten, Jan Opdekamp, Joram Van den Brande, Marc-Achille Filliol, Chris Blackbee, Emmanuel Debroise

Above: section - click for larger image

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by 51N4E appeared first on Dezeen.

Designed by local studio Doojin Hwang Architects, the three-storey-high building is constructed entirely from terracotta-coloured bricks. "We attempted to emphasise the natural quality of the materials and avoided using too many different materials," say the architects.

The perforated wall spans the southern facade to screen the two residential upper storeys. During the day it lets in light without permitting a view inside, but after dark the positions of windows are revealed behind.

"This unique pattern of bricks produces various shadow patterns by change of the time and the season, and makes the space rich and alive," explain the architects.

The northern facade of the building has a more traditional construction of solid brick walls and rectangular windows, with a glazed shop unit at ground level. Currently this space is used as a cafe, while a small gallery occupies the basement floor below.

A staircase on one side of the cafe leads up to the residential floors. Bedrooms and a bathroom are located on the first floor, while a living room and adjoining kitchen are on the uppermost storey. In the future, these floors could also be adapted to accommodate two individual apartments, each with views of the mountains to the north.

Named the West Village Building, the mixed-use structure is located close to Gyeongbok Palace and was completed in 2011.

Other houses to complete recently in South Korea include The Curving House, a residence clad with silver brickwork, and Pangyo House, which features a curving facade with extruded windows. See more architecture in South Korea.

Photography is by Youngchae Park.

Here's some more information from Doojin Hwang Architects:

The West Village Building

The West Village building, located in the West Village near Gyeongbok Palace, is a low-rise, high-density, mixed-use building. This area is full of multi-layered beauty of Seoul. To preserve historic and cultural ambience of the area, we proposed a typical 'rainbow cake' building, a concept developed by DJHA. This 3-storey building incorporates both residential and commercial functions vertically.

To design an 'ordinary but not ordinary' building, we tried to create a building rooted in its location and tried not to disturb the ambience of the historic West Village area, where the building is located. Large northern window commends a panoramic view towards Mt. Bukak and Mt. Inwang. On the southern facade, a unique brick pattern was used as a visual filter to screen the view of the building in front while allowing sunlight in. This unique pattern of bricks produces various shadow patterns by change of the time and the season, and makes the space rich and alive.

Main material of The West Village is bricks. We attempted to emphasise the natural quality of the materials and avoided using too many different materials.

Likewise, the interior was finished with paint rather than expensive, unique finish materials. Residential spaces on the 2nd and 3rd floors are partitioned by built-in furniture, which is integrated with lighting. Lightings were installed at the upper part of the furniture; the indirect light illuminates the ceilings.

Architect: Doojin Hwang (Doojin Hwang Architects)
Design team: Jeongyoon Choi
Location: Seoul
Year of completion: 2011
Floor: 3F + 1BF
Area: 209.83m²

Contractor: Janghak Construction
Structure engineer: Hwan Structural Engineers
Mechanical engineer: Daekyoung Engineering
Electric design: Daekyoung Engineering
Civil engineer: GeoTech Engineering & Consultants

Above: site plan - click for larger image

Above: basement floor plan - click for larger image

Above: intermediate floor plan - click for larger image

Above: ground floor plan - click for larger image

Above: first floor plan - click for larger image

Above: second floor plan - click for larger image

Above: cross section - click for larger image

Above: south elevation - click for larger image

Above: west elevation - click for larger image

Above: north elevation - click for larger image

Above: east elevation - click for larger image

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by Doojin Hwang Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

"A new building almost 'not present' from the outside is generated," Paola Liani and Itai Paritzki told Dezeen. "We tried to reinvent what is not present in this particular context and zone of the city - creating an intimate, rich, deep space overlooking a small garden."

The constrained site prevented the architects from giving the building many windows, so they added a long narrow skylight across the width of the roof to bring light down into both the ground and first floors.

A first floor corridor lines up with this skylight and features a gridded metal floor that lets light filter through to the open-plan kitchen, living room and dining area below.

The metal floor also allows residents on the ground floor to see others coming in and out of bedrooms on the level above.

A staircase with cantilevered iron treads connects the two floors and climbs up the side of one of two exposed brick walls. "We invested in this material because it moves the walls and the light, in a codified, almost historical way," said the architects.

More gridded metal is mounted into rectangular frames to act as a semi-transparent screen for the staircase, taking the place of a balustrade.

Paola Liani and Itai Paritzki founded their studio in 2001 and have also designed a house beside the face of a cliff and an apartment with a PVC ceiling.

See more architecture in Israel »

Photography is by Amit Geron.

Here's some more information from the architects:

ZBL House | Paritzki & Liani Architects

The house is inserted in a series of row houses, not far from the university area in Tel Aviv. It is a pedestrian oasis composed of attached houses, only one story high, and filled with green areas. The building restrictions for that specific zone permit utmost a height of 4.5 m for the façade and 6.5 m for the roof top.

The idea of this residential volume situated between two walls and two strips of green is to design the space with the natural light, excluding any full-height subdivision or typological hierarchy; only by inserting two voids that trace the movements of the inhabitants.

Two shifted rectangular cutouts of light: the first, located in the center of the volume directs the light from the roof level to the ground level, which is lifted 90 cm above the pathway (kitchen, dining, living area). The second, located on the external border between the house, the pool and the garden, consents the creation of a second naturally illuminated court, on underground level.

Once entering the house, one perceives the visual depth between the different levels and micro gardens of Sambucus on ground floor.

The suspended passage (bridge) that leads to the night area on the first floor is a diaphragm made of metal net grid only 2 cm thick that assumes the value of a lightweight veil that refines the zenithal light while extending the silhouettes of who walks through it, "in order to see nothing but the sky".

Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Total site area: 198 m2
Total floor area: 300 m²
Number of stories: 3
Status: Completed, 2012

Above: ground floor plan - click above for larger image and key

Above: first floor plan - click above for larger image and key

Above: long section

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Paritzki & Liani Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

The irregular arrangement of the six-metre wide cubes creates recessed openings across the facade, which MVRDV has used to add sheltered terraces to each floor and a new route from the waterfront towards the nearby railway station.

"We started with a massive slab and by removing pixels one by one we were able to create an arcade, terraces, a public passage, etcetera," project architect Jeroen Zuidgeest told Dezeen. "By carving out volumes, we made sure every floor has access to interior and exterior terraces."

The DNB Bank Headquarters is located within the waterfront development of Bjørvika Barcode that MVRDV masterplanned in collaboration with Norwegian architects A-Lab and Dark Arkitekter. Each studio has designed one building for the bank and MVRDV's is the first to complete.

At 17 storeys high, the building provides over 2000 flexible work spaces for employees and each floor accommodates a series of glass cubes where staff can hold informal meetings, have lunches or take phone calls.

Wooden bridges and staircases connect the floors both inside and outside, and it is possible to walk up one side of the building to the canteen and then back down on the other side.

"On one hand, you have this proud, strong iconography, and on the other hand you're offered social spaces and human character on every floor," said Zuidgeest. "None of the floors are the same and when you manoeuvre through the building you experience how each floor has its own character and qualities; each one has its own surprises."

The building is already in use, although the complex is scheduled to open officially in May 2013.

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

MVRDV has designed a few buildings with pixellated volumes, including a pair of skyscrapers that caused controversy for bearing a resemblance to the exploding World Trade Centre on 9/11. See more projects by MVRDV »

Above: photograph is by Jereon Musch

Photography is by Jiri Havran, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here's the full project description from MVRDV:

MVRDV completes DNB Bank Headquarters main building in Oslo

The central building of DNB’s new bank headquarter cluster developed by Oslo S Utvikling (OSU) is completed. The MVRDV designed main building has 17 unique floors and a surface of 36,500m2. The pixelated volume based on small-scale working units adapts to the various influences of the urban context, combining an efficient and flexible internal organisation with a variety of specific communal spaces such as the main entrance lobby, a transparent trading floor, a sheltered public passage, respect for urban view lines and collective terraces overlooking the fjord to the south. The glass and brick exterior expresses both the transparency and stability of DNB as a modern financial institution.

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

The development of the new headquarter cluster is a strategic operation concentrating the DNB offices formerly spread out over Oslo at one location, aiming for synergy and a clear identity. The objective was to translate the social and democratic character of the organisation into a building with excellent working conditions and spatial qualities that would stimulate efficiency, identity and collaboration.

The design is based on an ideal work group of the bank, a pixel of 6x6 metres, whose versatility permits adaptation to the flexible nature of the organisation. Besides more than 2,000 flexible work spaces the building contains a panoramic 140 seat canteen on the top level, the executive lounge with a view over the fjord, the board room, in the heart of the volume DNB's trading room with 250 work stations, and the main entrance with the reception and access to the concourse that connects to the two neighbouring volumes. The collective spaces are connected by a staggered continuous internal route of collective terraces, all being executed as glass pixels, encouraging informal meetings and communication between employees.

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

This route meanders from the reception upwards through the building, connecting all 17 levels office levels with the communal areas. A series of wooden stairs and bridges allow employees to switch levels or even to walk up to the canteen on one side of the building and down on the other side. The route accommodates communal areas to the office floors and is made homely with a series of pantries, informal meeting areas, reading-rooms, lounges and fire places. It gives access to the various outdoor terraces and roof gardens. All these collective spaces offer views to the surroundings and transparency from out side. The route is naturally ventilated and has a high performance glass fit for the cold Norwegian winter.

The generic office floors recline and are recessed in various places to answer to the urban context creating communal indoor and outdoor areas and outstanding daylight conditions. At street level the building volume is opened to give space to sheltered entrance zones, and intersected by a public passage creating a public route between Oslo Central Station and the fjord. The pixelated design allows this specific response whilst being highly efficient and flexible. As a result, every floor of the building is both unique and generic: the pixelated volume makes the generic specific.

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

The structure is conceived as a steel rack wrapped in a brick skin, covering all exterior terraces, walls and ceilings with bricks, which adopts Norwegian environmental standards and gives a human scale to the building. It appears as a rock, a strong shape within the boundaries of the Barcode.

The international Norwegian financial institution DNB decided to concentrate their twenty office locations currently dispersed over the city in the Bjørvika Barcode, an urban plan by MVRDV / DARK / a-lab next to Oslo Central Station. In 2007, the masterplan team was commissioned by developer OSU to design the urban concept for DNB’s headquarter complex. A new cluster of three volumes (80.000m2) and a common basement with a 3,000m2 underground concourse, which interlinks the three buildings of the bank, was developed. MVRDV was commissioned as architect for the central main building and co-responsible for the urban concept and concourse.

Above: photograph is by Jeroen Musch

MVRDV has collaborated with Norwegian co-architect DARK Arkitekter AS and various Norwegian engineering firms. Project management is executed by Norwegian firm Vedal Project AS. The second building of the DNB cluster is designed by A-lab and the third building by Dark Arkitekter, within the overall Bjørvika Barcode masterplan. The cluster will be officially opened May 14th 2013.

DNB is the largest financial services group in Norway. The Group consists of brands such as DNB, Vital, Nordlandsbanken, Cresco, Postbanken, DnB NORD and Carlson. In 2003, MVRDV, together with Norwegian firms Dark and a-lab, won the competition for the Bjørvika waterfront development with the design of the Bjørvika Barcode; a dense, open and differentiated urban master plan along Nyland Allé, that is developed and realised by OSU in phases. DNB Life Insurance (DNB Scandinavian Property Fund) bought the 3 buildings last year for 4,8 billion Norwegian krone.

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by MVRDV appeared first on Dezeen.