The one-room hut is named Diogene, after a Greek philosopher who rejected luxury and chose to live in a barrel, and is intended as a self-sufficient hideaway that can be used as a workplace or as a weekend home.

Renzo Piano first presented his idea for the minimal home in a 2009 edition of architectural magaine Abitare, proposing a living space of around two by two metres, with enough space for a bed, a chair and a small table. Following the publication, Piano was commissioned by Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of furniture brand Vitra, to develop the project.

"This little house is the final result of a long, long journey partially driven by desires and dreams, but also by technicality and a scientific approach," says Piano.

The completed cabin is presented as an experimental concept rather than a finished product. Its exterior is clad with aluminium panels to protect it from the elements and it uses solar panels, rainwater collection and a biological toilet to satisfy the usual requirements for electricity and water.

A pull-out sofa is fitted on one side of the space, while a folding table is slotted beneath the window and a shower, toilet and kitchen are also included. All together, the cabin is no wider than three metres and could easily fit inside a lorry.

"Diogene is not an emergency accommodation, but a voluntary place of retreat," adds Vitra.

The building opens this week at the Vitra Campus, where architects such as Herzog & de Meuron, Zaha Hadid and SANAA have all previously completed buildings. Hadid also recently returned to the campus to add an angular installation outside her Fire Station.

Other recent projects by Italian architect Renzo Piano include a flat-pack auditorium in Italy and London skyscraper The Shard.

See more architecture by Renzo Piano »
See more architecture at the Vitra Campus »

Here's a more detailed description from Vitra:

Diogene, a cabin designed by Renzo Piano and RPBW for Vitra

In June 2013, a further element will be introduced on the Vitra Campus. On a hill between the VitraHaus and the Dome, the Italian architect Renzo Piano and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) has developed Diogene, which to date is Vitra's smallest building ― but largest product.

The development of Diogene

In an interview with Renzo Piano, the architect explains that the ideal of minimalist housing is something which he has been considering since his student days. It is a kind of obsession, but a good one. A living space of two by two by two metres – just enough space for a bed, a chair and a small table – is a dream many architecture students share. Back then, he was unable to realise the idea. At the end of the 1960s, however, when Piano was teaching at the Architectural Association in London, he joined forces with his students to build mini houses on Bedford Square. The architect has also designed boats, cars and, a few years ago, cells for the nuns of the Poor Clare nunnery of Ronchamp. There too, it was about minimising the spatial environment of these people, not for reasons of economic efficiency, but for self-moderation. The minimalist house is an idea that continues to fascinate Piano, particularly in an era in which his office is dealing with big projects, for instance what was Europe's tallest high-rise at the time of its completion in 2012 – The Shard in London.

About ten years ago, of his own volition and without a specific client, Renzo Piano began developing a minimalist house. Various prototypes were developed in Genoa – from plywood, concrete and, finally, from wood. The final version of the project which Piano dubbed Diogene was published in autumn 2009 in the monograph booklet Being Renzo Piano by the Italian magazine Abitare: a wooden saddle-roofed house with a 2.4 x 2.4-metre surface area, a ridge height of 2.3 metres and a weight of 1.2 tonnes. Piano presented his vision to the public in the magazine, but noted in a comment that he needed a client in order to continue developing Diogene.

The Italian architect found his partner in Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of the Vitra AG. Fehlbaum had read the issue of Abitare and immediately felt attracted to Renzo Piano's ideas, as Vitra does not regard itself as a manufacturer of individual design objects, but defines furniture as an essential part of the human environment. If we look back at the history of furniture design, it was Diogene, a cabin designed by Renzo Piano and RPBW for Vitra always about requalifying people's living space; the living landscapes of the 1960s and 1970s are just one case in point.

At the end of June 2010, there was a meeting between Renzo Piano and Rolf Fehlbaum, who at that time were still members of the Pritzker Prize jury. During this meeting, they agreed to continue the Diogene project together. After three years of development work, a new Diogene prototype is being presented at the Vitra Campus on the lawn opposite the VitraHaus on the occasion of the Art Basel 2013. It is not a finished project, but an experimental arrangement enabling Vitra to test the potential of the minimalist house. Vitra is thus breaking new ground: While usually only products which are ready for series production are presented to the public, it was decided to let the public take part in the testing of Diogene due to the complexity of Renzo Piano's project. The further development of the project and whether it will go into series production will be decided on at a later date.

The idea of the minimalist house

The simple, archaic house situated in nature, which – based on the antique concepts of theoretical architect Vitruv – marks the beginning of technology and architecture, aroused renewed interest at the end of the 18th century, as is particularly evident from the copperplate engraving of the original Vitruv hut, which was included in the 1755 2nd edition of Marc-Antoine Laugier's Essai sur l'Architecture. Since then, the idea of the minimalist house has repeatedly fascinated architects. Sometimes the focus was placed on the formal aspects, and sometimes on social considerations, such as the "subsistence level apartment", which was a topic of discussion in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1960s, which were defined by structuralism, the minimalist cells were combined into clusters. In the recent past, the discussion revolved around mobile living structures for use in natural catastrophes or in war-torn areas of the world.

Diogene is not an emergency accommodation, but a voluntary place of retreat. It is supposed to function in various climate conditions, independent of the existing infrastructure, i.e. as a self-sufficient system. The required water is collected by the house itself, cleaned and reused. The house supplies its own power and the necessary platform is minimised.

We live in an age in which the demand for sustainability forces us to minimise our ecological footprint. This postulate is paired with the desire to concentrate and reduce the direct living environment to the truly essential things. Diogene might remind one of Henry D. Thoreau, who wrote the following in his book Walden/Life in the Woods in 1854: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach." It is no coincidence that Piano also regards his project as "quite romantic" and emphasises the aspect of "spiritual silence" which it conveys: "Diogene provides you with what you really need and no more."

As architectural references, Renzo Piano lists the Cabanon, which Le Corbusier constructed at the beginning of the 1950s in Cap-Martin in the Côte d'Azur, the prefabricated house structures of Charlotte Perriand, and the Nakagin Capsule Tower, which Kisho Kurokawa erected in Tokyo in 1972. The late 1960s and early 1970s in London were very formative years for Piano: In the interview, he mentions one particularly important influence during this era as being Cedric Price with his Fun Palace and the hippie movement.

Diogene and its equipment

Diogene, named after the antique philosopher Diogenes who is said to have lived in a barrel because he considered worldly luxuries to be superfluous, is a minimalist living unit which functions completely autonomously as a self-contained system and is thus independent of its environment. With a surface area of 2.5 x 3 metres when fully assembled and furnished, it can be loaded onto a lorry and transported anywhere. Whereas Diogene's exterior corresponds to the image of a simple house, it is in truth a highly complex technical structure, equipped with various installations and technical systems that are necessary to guarantee its self-sufficiency and independence from the local infrastructure: Photovoltaic cells and solar modules, a rainwater tank, a biological toilet, natural ventilation, triple glazing. To optimise the house's energy, Renzo Piano is working with Matthias Schuler from the renowned company Transsolar, while Maurizio Milan is responsible for static equilibrium. Diogene is equipped with everything you need for living. The front part serves as a living room: On one side, there is a pull-out sofa; on the other, a folding table under the window. Behind a partition, there are a shower and toilet as well as a kitchen, which has also been reduced to the necessary.

The house and furnishings form a single unit. It is constructed from wood with a warm character, which also defines the interior. For the purpose of weather protection, the exterior is coated with aluminium paneling.

The overall shape and saddle roof resemble the archetype of a house, but its rounded-off corners and the all-over façade materials also give the impression of a contemporary product. It is no simple hut, but instead a technically perfect and aesthetically attractive refuge. The great challenge lies in planning the complex product so that it is suitable for industrial series production. "This little house is the final result of a long, long journey partially driven by desires and dreams, but also by technicality and a scientific approach," explains Renzo Piano.

Diogene has many possible uses: It can serve as a little weekend house, as a "studiolo", as a small office. It can be placed freely in nature, but also right next to one's workplace, or even as a simplified version in the middle of an open space office. However, it is also conceivable to erect groups of houses, e.g. as an informal hotel or guest house. Diogene is so small that it functions as the ideal retreat, but purposely does not cater for all needs to the same extent. Communication, for instance, will take place elsewhere – and thus Diogene also invites you to redefine the relationship between the individual and society.

The post Diogene by Renzo Piano
at Vitra Campus appeared first on Dezeen.

News: architect Daniel Libeskind has refuted allegations that he was given an unfair advantage and received unlawful payments for designing a new building at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg in Germany, where he is also a part-time professor.

The allegations, printed in the German press last week, claim that there were irregularities in the way the project was awarded to Libeskind, as well as irregularities in reimbursements for his work.

Leuphana University has threatened to take legal action against the publications and today issued a statement saying the allegations are "unsubstantiated".

"We categorically refute these allegations", said university spokesperson Henning Zühlsdorff. "Daniel Libeskind was not granted any unlawful advantages nor were competitors given a disadvantage."

"The allegations that are made through the press are allegations which we refute as false," Nina Libeskind told Dezeen. "The contracts between the university and professor Libeskind were contracts that were publicly registered and were passed through the parliament. How we could be any more official or legal than that, we don't know."

Daniel Libeskind was awarded the commission to design a new building for Leuphana University to house an auditorium, lecture theatres and student offices in 2007, around the same time he joined the university as a visiting professor.

Nina Libeskind told Dezeen that the program for the building was developed by Libeskind in a seminar with students at the university before plans were submitted to the ministry of science and culture. "There were a whole series of seminars which were conducted and on the basis of that, the building was designed," she explained. "As a professor working with the students, he designed the building... I think that's why it wasn't put out to tender."

A spokesperson from the European Union's anti-fraud office (OLAF) told Dezeen that the organisation has recommended action be taken by the commission directorate-general for regional policy and urban development (DG REGIO) to clarify the way EU funding has been spent in relation to the building.

The total cost of the project is €60,000,000, with the state of Lower Saxony contributing €21,000,000 and the European Union contributing €12,480,000.

The building is due for completion in August 2015.

See all our stories about Daniel Libeskind »
See all our stories about architecture for education »

The statement below is from Leuphana University:

Allegations of Unlawful Acceptance of Benefits by Daniel Libeskind Unsubstantiated

Lüneburg. Leuphana University of Lüneburg unequivocally rejects all allegations of irregularities in the award procedure in relation to Daniel Libeskind and reimbursements of services rendered by him and his office. According to the university’s legal interpretation those accusations are groundless and irresponsible. We also wish to state that we are extremely appreciative of Daniel Libeskind’s contributions to the work of the university.

Contrary to recent media coverage of an as yet unreleased and confidential report prepared by OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, neither Mr. Libeskind nor his office received any unlawful payments.

"We categorically refute these allegations", stated university spokesperson Henning Zühlsdorff. He added that, following the university's instigation of legal proceedings against numerous members of the press, many of them have already agreed to issue retractions or corrections.

The process of retaining and paying both Mr. Libeskind and his practice have been conducted in accordance with the law. For his work as a part-time professor at Leuphana University, Mr. Libeskind receives an annual salary of approximately 50.000 Euro pre-tax. Studio Daniel Libeskind, Mr. Libeskind’s architectural practice, was retained by the university solely to provide advice on the design of the new central university building.

Says Zühlsdorff: "Daniel Libeskind was not granted any unlawful advantages nor were competitors given a disadvantage."

The post Daniel Libeskind dismisses "totally false
allegations" of unlawful payments appeared first on Dezeen.

Local architects Marc Benjamin Drewes and Thomas Schneider teamed up to design the apartment for a couple and their children, creating two bedrooms, a bathroom and an open-plan living room and kitchen.

The project is named Box 117 and the architects refer to the two white-painted bedrooms and bathroom as "simple boxes" with a narrow shadow gap around the tops of the walls to highlight the edges.

The wooden parquet flooring runs down one side of the apartment beneath white-washed timber ceilings. The red and white cement tiles are positioned on the opposite side underneath the exposed concrete ceilings.

"The raw concrete ceilings are preserving the industrial character," says Drewes. "Partly old with a wooden pattern, partly new with a smooth surface, the ceiling tells something about the history of the space."

Each room has a floor-to-ceiling height of 3.4 metres, allowing for overhead storage and an elevated sleeping area in the children's bedroom.

See more apartments on Dezeen, including one in Barcelona with tiled floors that reveal its historic layout and one in Paris with decorative wooden flooring.

Photography is by Christoph Rokitta.

Here's a project description from Marc Benjamin Drewes:

Box 117

A couple with two little kids moved into this loft in a Berlin backyard.

A continuous space for a kitchen, living area and sleeping area for the parents surrounds two boxes in which you find the children's room and the bathroom. This open layout creates the loft character of the space.

The children are sleeping in a niche above a litte storage next to the children's room. That way one takes advantage of the clear height of 3.4m to create more living area. The sleeping area of the parents can be closed with a room-high sliding door. If the door is open it disappears behind the bathroom-box.

The oak parquet and the cement tiles on the floor are creating a basis full of character for the simple boxes with a limewash coat. A shadow gap all around separates these boxes from the existing elements of the space and all doors are flush with the wall to accentuate the simple form. The raw concrete ceilings are preserving the industrial character. Partly old with a wooden pattern, partly new with a smooth surface the ceiling tells something about the history of the space.

The post Box 117 by Marc Benjamin Drewes
and Thomas Schneider appeared first on Dezeen.

Built by Belgian studio Robbrecht en Daem to a series of sketched plans and perspectives discovered in the Mies van der Rohe Archive of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the pavilion respects the original design for the clubhouse that, due to the Great Depression, was never built.

Architects Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem conceived the structure as a full-size model rather than a building. "It is a life-size model revealing the essence of Mies's architecture through its abstraction," they explain.

The pavilion is located on the site it was originally planned for near Krefeld, where Mies van der Rohe also completed the residences Haus Esters and Haus Lange. "The pavilion is temporarily enriching the architectural heritage of a city that is known for being home to two of Mies's other remarkable buildings," say the architects.

The structure primarily comprises an open-plan space that is loosely partitioned by timber screens and stainless-steel columns. Offices, changing rooms and staff rooms are positioned along the eastern side of the plan, alongside a canopy that projects out towards the landscape.

1:1 Modell Golfclubhaus opens to the public this weekend and will remain in place until the end of October.

German-American architect Mies van der Rohe is commonly regarded as one of the masters of Modernist architecture. Two apartment towers by the architect were recently restored in Chicago, while his famous Barcelona Pavilion was filled with junk for an exhibition earlier this year. See more stories about Mies van der Rohe.

Robbrecht en Daem also recently received critical acclaim, after the firm's market hall in Ghent was one of the five finalists for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2013.

Photography is by Marc De Blieck.

Here's some more information from Robbrecht en Daem:

Mies van der Rohe - 1:1 Modell Golfclubhaus

Robbrecht en Daem architecten are building a life-size model to a 1930 design by Mies van der Rohe.

In the rolling landscape around the former industrial German city of Krefeld, Robbrecht en Daem architecten realized a striking temporary pavilion based on a design for a golf course clubhouse by Mies van der Rohe dating from 1930, which was never built. Christiane Lange, art historian and curator for Projekt MIK, invited the Belgian architectural firm of Robbrecht en Daem architecten to create a temporary objet d'architecture using the series of historical sketches of the project that were discovered during research into the Mies van der Rohe Archive at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. The temporary installation by Robbrecht en Daem architecten is open for viewing from 27 May to 31 October 2013 at the original location of the project. The installation of 84 by 87 m is built primarily of wood. It is being conceived as a life-size model whose abstraction brings out the essence of Mies's architecture and spatial concepts. Along with the two other famous Mies projects in Krefeld – Haus Esters and Haus Lange, characterised by their brick volumetries and classical plan – the pavilion serves as a lovely illustration of the evolution that Mies brought to Modernism.

Krefeld, an industrial city on the edge of the Ruhr area, already housed two masterpieces from the early European career of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: the twin project consisting of Haus Esters and Haus Lange, which date from 1927-1930. Those two projects, along with a handful of other project from Mies's hand, an extensive collection of furniture, several exhibition scenographies and the corporate building Verseidag bear witness to the good contacts that Mies had with the textile industry in Krefeld in the inter-bellum period.

Art historian Christiane Lange – granddaughter of textile manufacturer Hermann Lange, for whom Mies built Haus Lange – has been heading up a research and art project into the creations that Mies did for Krefeld.

The research project 'Mies in Krefeld (Projekt MIK)' has already seen two publications, an exhibitions and a documentary film around the theme. During research into the Mies van der Rohe Archive at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, Lange stumbled upon a series of sketches that Mies had made in 1930 for a pavilion at the golf course close to Krefeld, that had never been built.

The unique archive material for the clubhouse includes sketched plans and perspectives that, in spite of being only few in number, manage to give a good impression of Mies's ambitions for the project. The design was to be part of a series of experiments into the spatial principles of the plan libre. The sketches show a spacious roof surface on slender columns, combined with a strongly rhythmical floor design and a few well positioned dividing walls that encapsulate the space. Along with the Esters villa and the Lange villa, known for their brick volumes and their open, yet classical plan, the clubhouse would have served as the perfect illustration for the evolution that Mies brought to Modernism.

For Christiane Lange, the unique archive material was the inspiration to curate an artistic project linking her historical interest in the persistent relation of Mies with the Krefeld based silk industry and its protagonists, with the broader question into the significance of Mies's architecture for contemporary architectural practice. She challenged the Belgian Robbrecht en Daem architecten to develop a new interpretation of Mies's design and to create an objet d'architecture to scale at the original site of the project.

Design Architects: Robbrecht en Daem architecten
Executive Architects: Architektur Büro Ruhnau / DGM Architekten

The post Mies van der Rohe - 1:1 Modell Golfclubhaus
by Robbrecht en Daem appeared first on Dezeen.

Architects Sergei Tchoban and Sergey Kuznetsov of SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov designed the building to house the collections of the Tchoban Foundation, which the architect founded in 2009 as an archive of architectural drawings from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Located on the site of a former brewery, the five-storey museum will be the foundation's first address and comprises a stack of overlapping concrete volumes with a glass penthouse positioned on top.

Architectural reliefs cover all three of the yellowish-grey concrete facades and form repetitive patterns. The surfaces are also broken up into groups of gently angled planes, intended to mimic overlapping sheets of paper.

"This artistic touch is supposed to emphasise the function and contents of the exposition in the museum's architectural look," explain the architects.

The ground floor of the building accommodates an entrance hall, shop and library. The collections will be housed on the three middle floors and will only be accessible by appointment, while the the glass penthouse and roof terrace will function as an events space.

The Museum for Architectural Drawing is set to open in June and will present both a permanent drawing collection and loans from international collections.

Architects Sergei Tchoban and Sergey Kuznetsov have worked together on various projects as SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov. Their past collaborations include curating the Russian Pavilion at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale.

See more museums on Dezeen, including the new Design Museum for Barcelona.

Photography is by Patricia Parinejad.

Here's a project description from SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov:

Museum for architectural drawings of the Tchoban Foundation

The Museum for Architectural Drawings is meant for placing and exposing the collections of the Tchoban Foundation founded in 2009 for the purpose of architectural graphics art popularisation as well as for interim exhibitions from different institutions including such famous as Sir John Soane's Museum in London or École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

For the construction of the Museum, the Foundation purchased a small lot on the territory of the former factory complex Pfefferberg, where the art-cluster is formed. Here are already located the famous architecture gallery AEDES, modern art gallery and artists' workshops. The Architectural Graphics Museum that is being constructed will become a logical continuation to the development of the new cultural centre in a district Prenzlauer Berg that is very popular among Berlin residents.

The new Museum building will flank the firewall of the adjacent four-storey residential house. Such neighborhood and the location under the conditions of the current development implied the irregular space-planning arrangement of the Museum. The volume that is compact in terms of design rises up to the mark of the neighboring roof ridge, forming five blocks clearly cut in the building carcass and offset in relation to each other.

The upper block, made of glass, hang over the whole volume of the building in cantilever. The façades of the four lower blocks are made of concrete and its surfaces are covered with relief drawings with architectural motives, repeating on every level and overlapping each other as sheets of paper. This artistic touch is supposed to emphasise the function and contents of the exposition in the Museum's architectural look.

On the first and third floors from the side of Christinenstrasse, the flat surfaces of the massive concrete walls alternate with large glass panes accentuating the building’s main entrance and a recreation room in front of one of the graphic cabinets. On the first floor there will be the entrance hall – library. Two cabinets for drawings exposition and archive are located on the upper floors. The levels are connected by an elevator and stairs.

Address: Christinenstraße 18a, 10119 Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, Germany
Customer: Tchoban Foundation. Museum for Architectural Drawing

Authors: Sergei Tchoban and Sergey Kuznetsov of SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov, Moscow
Planning and project management: nps tchoban voss GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin
Architects: Philipp Bauer, Nadja Fedorova, Katja Fuks, Ulrike Graefenhain, Dirk Kollendt

Start: 2009 - 2011
Construction: 2011 - 2013

The post Museum for Architectural Drawing
by SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov appeared first on Dezeen.