The buildings of Lyon are pulled apart in these impossible photographs by Norwegian artist Espen Dietrichson.

The series is entitled Variations On a Dark City and forms part of the artist's One of Many Unusual Moments exhibition on show at the Galerie Roger Tator in Lyon.

For each image the walls and roof of a building are moved apart into the sky, just like the exploded axonometric diagrams drafted by architects.

"The series of modified or levitated architecture started as my first interest when I went to art academy," Dietrichson told Dezeen.

Above: exhibition view is by David Desaleux

Explaining his technique, he said: "The photos are made half manually and half digitally. The technical drawing of the explosion is hand-drawn on paper, and after the first cut and paste almost all of the end-process is digital, before the silkscreening."

Other manipulated photography on Dezeen includes a tower block that looks like it's being unzipped and landscapes that are distorted into circles.

See more stories about photography »

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by Espen Dietrichson appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch designers Studio Makkink & Bey have completed a store for shoe brand Camper in Lyon with staircases that seem to go on forever.

The stairs form display stands for shoes and are outlined in bright red to merge with graphics printed onto the walls as though the steps continue.

More shoes are displayed on recessed shelving and the highest shelves can be reached using mobile blocks of yet more steps.

Camper often commission well-known designers to create the interiors for their stores, such as Nendo, Jaime Hayon, and Doshi Levien. See all our stories about Camper here.

Photography is by Sanchez y Montoro.

Here's some more information from Studio Makkink & Bey:

Camper Shoe Store

Studio Makkink & Bey were inspired by basic walking movements for the design of a new concept store for Camper in Lyon.

Movements forward, upward and downward are shaped in staircase pedestals, stools or stepladders and outlined in bright red lines on the stairs, walls and floors.

The stairs represent the conjunction of separate places.

While performing as a place to meet, sit on or pass through, they expand places and establish rhythm, depth and infinity of spaces.

This is the studio's first cooperation with Camper as part of the Together Project.

Camper Shoe Store

Rue de la Republique 58

69002 Lyon, France

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Studio Makkink & Bey appeared first on Dezeen.

French architects Tectoniques have completed a townhouse in Lyon that is entirely black at the front but has three oversized windows at the rear.

Completely prefabricated in wood, the four-storey DI-VA House was constructed in less than a week.

Living rooms and a kitchen occupy the two lower levels, while bedrooms, bathrooms and an office are located on the two floors above.

A staircase with cantilevered treads runs along the side of the house and leads up to a terrace on the roof.

Some other interesting French houses we’ve featured include one with a swimming pool on the roof and another with stone screens on its facade - see more projects in France here.

Photography is by Georges Fessy.

Here's some more text from Tectoniques:

Black Box

The DI-VA house, whose name is a play on the owners' names, occupies a previously empty space in the residential Croix-Rousse district of Lyon.

Given the narrowness of the frontage, and the fact that there is a building directly opposite, the architects decided to adopt a judo-type strategy. The house turns away from direct confrontation, and exploits chinks in the landscape in order to optimise the views and ambiances. Entirely prefabricated, it was constructed in less than a week. Its sudden appearance came as something of a surprise to the neighbours, whose reactions were mixed. But in spite of its uncompromising colour and form, the building does not express any aggressiveness. On the contrary, it takes its place quite harmoniously in the surrounding topology, with tranquillity and a considerable degree of discretion.

A challenging space

DI-VA occupies a site of 200 m2 that had been abandoned for some years. To the south there is a dense, homogeneous area that was constructed in the 19th century, and, to the north, a group of buildings, miscellaneous in height and spacing, that express a more "modern" spirit. The street (Rue Henri Gorjus) is disparate in character, but there are two broad styles, and DI-VA marks a cutoff point between them. On the southern side, the buildings are aligned, and traditional in character; on the northern side, juxtaposing DI-VA, there is a detached house dating from the 1970s, set back from the street and surrounded by trees, which signals the start of a section that is more open and less structured.

Despite its unimposing dimensions, DI-VA plays the role of a mediator between two periods, and two visions of urbanism. It is attached to a building that terminates the classical sequence of lined-up buildings with windowless gables, while its main facade, on the other side, looks out over the contrasting part of the street. And this asymmetry is accentuated by the subtle treatment of the main entrance. There is a space between the prefinished steel door and the main body of the house, separating the public and private domains, which enhances the effect made by this decentred edifice.

Fitting in

DI-VA is a simple volume, with four identical floors of 60 m2 each. The southern gable is attached to the house next door. The facade that faces the street has practically no openings: it is silent and abstract, apart from a vertical strip of glass behind a wooden lattice that admits light into the staircase and gives a hint of inner life, but without divulging it. There are also inset horizontal openings that bring light and air to the ground floor, but are undetectable from the outside.

The northern facade is the most exposed, being perceptible from the street. The communal living spaces have two vertical columns of picture windows that maximise visibility, including that of the neighbouring cedars. The western facade, which cannot be seen from the street, opens onto the garden, which is bounded by an aesthetically coordinated wall. It is overlooked by the bedrooms and other private spaces. The western facade, in sum, stands in contrast with the eastern. The former is transparent, the latter opaque.

Slow deliberation, swift construction

As champions of prefabrication and "dry construction", the architects proposed that wood should be used throughout. Besides its ecological advantages, this meant that the construction process was rapid, and well suited to the constrained context of the operation. Cross-laminated wood was used for the walls, partitions and floors. It is a material whose properties resemble those of reinforced concrete, except that it can be assembled in a purely mechanical way, in "dry" mode.

The different elements were produced by the Austrian firm Binderholz in the form of macro-components, in pine, which is light in colour and homogeneous, with an unobtrusive grain and few knots. The macro-components were delivered ready for assembly by Arbosphère, which specialises in this technique. And it might be noted that the assembly process itself took just five days, i.e. a lot less than the design phase.

In order to minimise energy consumption, while maximising comfort, the design included external insulation for the walls and roof, using 160 mm Trespa Météon panels. The outer frame is in larch, the floors in ash. In sum, all the components are made of wood, or wood-based products.

Habitat

The house is intended for a couple with three children, but would be adaptable to other possibilities. The living spaces are deliberately simple and compact, arranged around a central core that contains the service networks and amenities (toilets, showers, kitchen). The living room and kitchen are on the ground floor, which opens onto the garden, via a terrace. The communal living space is on the first floor. The second floor is for the parents, with a bedroom, office and bathroom. On the third floor there are the three children's bedrooms, and a bathroom. There is also a rooftop sun deck.

The compartmentalisation of the house in terms of the different levels is counterbalanced by the permeability of the staircase, whose slender uprights make the steps seem to float in the air without interrupting the vertical continuity between the four levels, or the horizontal transparency between the street and the garden. And the glass-fronted wood-burning stove on the first floor, installed without any surround or supporting structure, further emphasises this continuity.

DI-VA incorporates different bioclimatic systems. There is natural ventilation that makes use of the building's triple orientation. The high level of insulation and systematic solar protection ensure thermal comfort, notably in the summer. And there is under-floor heating using a ground-coupled heat exchanger, backed up by the wood-burning stove.

Dark on the outside, light on the inside

The outside of the house is dark, the inside light. Its smooth, taut skin covers a soft, natural interior. This is an archetypical architectural formulation: protective outside, nurturing inside.
The style is consistent. All of the interior, including the ceilings and partitions, is composed of cross-laminated pine panels. There is neither paint nor veneer. On the outside, black bakelite-look panels cover the entire volume, while preserving their lightness, like a cape.

This contrast is explained by the constructive choice of an internal structure, clad and insulated on the outside. It is the result of an aesthetic aspiration, where yin and yang create graphic effects in an articulation between two worlds. When daylight is at its weakest, the outer darkness mingles with, and stimulates, the wood-toned light that emanates from the interior. Each enriches the other, softening and warming it. Thus the use of a single material, without decorative effects or excess, gives pride of place to architecture as such.

Areas: 220 sqm
Cost: Unreported
Client: Private
Architects: Tectoniques
Shell, concrete base: Alfred Carayol
Wood frame: Arbosphère

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This orange cube with two large round holes carved out of it is a design showroom in Lyon, France, by Paris studio Jakob + Macfarlane.

Top photograph is by Roland Halbe

The building is located next to a harbour and features a coloured metal mesh façade perforated with circles of different sizes.

Above photograph is by Roland Halbe

The volume is punctured in two places, with the smaller hole at ground level providing an entry point into the building.

The larger hole on the upper corner of the structure creates an atrium and exposes the internal floors and balconies.

The six-storey building is separated into a double-height showroom on the ground floor and offices on the upper levels, with a roof terrace surrounding offices on the sixth floor.

Full-height walls with polygonal apertures have been inserted throughout the showroom, with items displayed in the holes.

Photographs are by Nicolas Borel unless otherwise stated.

More architecture on Dezeen »

The following information is from the architects:

The Orange Cube - Jakob + Macfarlane Architects

The ambition of the urban planning project for the old harbor zone, developed by VNF (Voies Naviguables de France) in partnership with Caisse des Dépôts and Sem Lyon Confluence, was to reinvest the docks of Lyon on the river side and its industrial patrimony, bringing together architecture and a cultural and commercial program.

These docks, initially made of warehouses (la Sucrière, les Douanes, les Salins, la Capitainerie), cranes, functional elements bound to the river and its flow, mutate into a territory of experimentation in order to create a new landscape that is articulated towards the river and the surrounding hills.

The project is designed as a simple orthogonal « cube » into which a giant hole is carved, responding to necessities of light, air movement and views.

This hole creates a void, piercing the building horizontally from the river side inwards and upwards through the roof terrace.

The cube, next to the existing hall (the Salins building, made from three archs) highlights its autonomy. It is designed on a regular framework (29 x 33m) made of concrete pillars on 5 levels.

A light façade, with seemingly random openings is completed by another façade, pierced with pixilated patterns that accompany the movement of the river. The orange color refers to lead paint, an industrial color often used for harbor zones.

Above photograph is by Roland Halbe

In order to create the void, Jakob + MacFarlane worked with a series of volumetric perturbations, linked to the subtraction of three “conic” volumes disposed on three levels: the angle of the façade, the roof and the level of the entry.

These perturbations generate spaces and relations between the building, its users, the site and the light supply, inside a common office program.

The first perturbation is based on direct visual relation with the arched structure of the hall, its proximity and its buttress form.

It allows to connect the two architectural elements and to create new space on a double height, protected inside the building.

A second, obviously an elliptic one, breaks the structural regularity of the pole-girder structure on four levels at the level of the façade corner that gives on the river side.

This perforation, result of the encounter of two curves, establishes a diagonal relation towards the angle. It generates a huge atrium in the depth of the volume, surrounded by a series of corridors connected to the office platforms.

The plan of the façade is hence shifted towards the interior, constructing a new relation to light and view, from both interior and exterior.

This creates an extremely dynamic relation with the building that changes geometry according to the position of the spectator.

The tertiary platforms benefit from light and views at different levels with balconies that are accessible from each level.

Each platform enjoys a new sort of conviviality through the access on the balconies and its views, creating spaces for encounter and informal exchanges.

The research for transparency and optimal light transmission on the platforms contributes to make the working spaces more elegant and light.

The last floor has a big terrace in the background from which one can admire the whole panoramic view on Lyon, la Fourvière and Lyon-Confluence.

The project is part of the approach for sustainable development and respects the following principles:

Optimization of the façade conception allowing to reconcile thermal performance and visual comfort with an Ubat < 0,7 W / m2 K and a daylight factor of 2% for almost the total number of offices, a thermo frigorific production through heat pumps on the water level and the replacement of new hygienic air with recuperation of high efficient calories of the extracted air.

Click for larger image

The building is connected to future huge floating terraces connected to the banks of the river/ quays.

Click for larger image

PROGRAM:

commercial: headquarters Cardinal Group, real estate development
cultural: Design Showroom RBC

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Showroom concept:

This project was about bringing together a showroom dedicated to the world of design objects inside the architecture of an existing building: « The Orange Cube ». The intention was to bring the worlds of Architecture, Design and the uniqueness of the site in Lyon together into one experience.

Click for larger image

JAKOB + MACFARLANE decided to take the language of the Cube, which is based on the fluid movement of the River Saône and in a sense project this movement inside the space of the showroom.

Thus imagining the space as an extrapolation of the façade, a virtual three dimensional river or volume containing a long porous wall whose 60 “alvéoles” are filled with furniture. This wall wraps around the space of the showroom forming an L.

The spectator moves from the spectacular entry wall towards more intimate spaces on the river side. Each “alvéole” is unique in seize and form allowing thus an intimate and private view of each design piece.

The platforms on the floor, made from a series of kitset pants, imagined like islands, can become stages for different thematic presentations.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Client: Rhône Saône Développement
Dates: competition 2005 – September 2010
Surface: 6300m2

Click for larger image

Site: Quai Rambaud, Lyon
Program: tertiary
Cost consultant: Michel Forgue

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Electrical Engineering: Alto Ingénierie
Acoustic: Avel Acoustique
Structure: RFR GO+
Façade: T.E.S.S

See also:

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Nestlé Laboratory by Rojkind Arquitectos	TEK by BIG	Mole by Ninkipen!

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Here are some photos of the recently-completed mixed-use urban block Le Monolith in Lyon, France, masterplanned by Dutch studio MVRDV and designed by five different architects.

The building incorporates social housing, rental property, offices, retail and accommodation for disabled people.

Five distinct sections were each designed by a different architect; the collaborating firms are French architects ECDM, Manuelle Gautrand and Pierre Gautier, and Dutch studios MVRDV and Erick van Egeraat.

MVRDV were responsible for the south-facing waterfront section, where aluminium shutters shield the interiors from sunlight.

When these shutters are closed, letters on the facade spell out the first article of the European Constitution.

See Erick van Egeraat's portion in our earlier story.

See all our stories about MVRDV »

Photographs are by Philippe Ruault.

Here are some more details from MVRDV:

MVRDV completes ‘Le Monolithe’, Lyon

‘Le Monolithe’, an energy efficient mixed-use urban block located in the development area Confluence at the southern tip of Lyon’s Presqu’île, has reached completion. The structure with a total surface of 32.500 m2 combines social housing, rental property, a residence for disabled people, offices and retail. The block is composed of five sections, each one designed by a different architect, following the MVRDV masterplan: Pierre Gautier, Manuelle Gautrand, ECDM and Erik van Egeraat. Landscape architects West 8 designed the public plaza. MVRDV designed the head section which advertises over the full façade the European integration by quoting the EU constitution. ‘Le Monolithe’ has been realized by ING Real Estate Development and Atemi.

Le Monolithe:

In 2004, ING Real Estate Developers had invited a group of international architects to design the masterplan, for which MVRDV was chosen as winner. Based on this masterplan, each architect was asked to design a section which together form ‘Le Monolithe’. The urban superblock is a mixed-use development comprising a mix of social and rental housing, offices and underground parking. The block is characterised by a large interior court with a raised public space overlooking the city, the new marina and a park, in this way resembling the French classical ‘Grand Gallérie’. The block is divided into five sections, each one designed by a different architect in order to achieve diversity and architectural variety. MVRDV is responsible for the head section in the south at the waterfront. Each part is unique in material, composition and architectural expression. The project forms part of the urban regeneration project ‘Lyon Confluence’, a 150 hectare site located at the southern tip of Lyon’s Presqu’île, where the rivers Rhône and Saône merge.

South building:

The interiors of MVRDV’s south facing building are protected from the sun by means of aluminium shutters as a reference to traditional local architecture. Apartments inside Le Monolithe offer a great diversity in order to attract different groups of inhabitants making the block a reflection of Lyon’s population. Offices are divided into separate units of min. 500 m² which are accessed by three vertical circulation cores, providing individual access. Each unit allows for a flexible fit out, depending on the tenants’ needs and requirements. All spaces are naturally lit and ventilated.

In June 2005, when France and The Netherlands voted against the European Constitution, MVRDV decided to redesign the façade and integrate a reminder of the values, ideals and needs of the European Union. When all shutters are closed, the first article of the European Constitution can be read: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”

It aims to advocate a possible ‘Yes’ for Europe in days of protectionism, accompanying the collective EU spirit of the gathered architects. The adjacent sections were designed by French and Dutch architects Pierre Gautier, Manuelle Gautrand, ECDM and Erik van Egeraat. Dutch landscape architects West 8 designed the public space.

‘Le Monolithe’ is one of the projects within the greater scheme for Lyon Confluence which has been developed as part of Grand Lyon’s European Concerto-Renaissance programme, a project supported by the European Commission. The building not only complies with High Environmental Quality (HQE) criteria, such as reinforced insulation, careful selection of materials and rainwater management; further, 80% of the total energy consumed is provided by renewable energy sources. The combination of efficient spatial composition, passive energy (sunscreens, high thermal inertia), thermal and acoustic comfort and an energy strategy that includes heat storage, PV-cells, low-e double glazing, compactness to minimise heat loss, natural ventilation and an environmentally responsive façade system make ‘Le Monolithe’ a highly efficient low energy construction, e.g. heating accounts for <40 kWh/m²/year and hot water <5 kWh/m²/year.

The ambitious greater urban project Lyon Confluence extends the city centre to the very tip of the peninsula by creating diverse neighbourhoods involving retail and leisure zones, parks, cultural institutions, housing, schools and offices, and local public amenities.

See also:

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Monolith by Erick van Egeraat	Rotterdam Market Hall by MVRDV	More architecture stories

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