ArkiSpot

Architect: Alver Trummal Architects
Authors: Andres Alver, Indrek Rünkla, Ulla Mets, Tarmo Laht
Structural design: Väino Taidur
Design: 2002
Completed: 2003
Photos: Andres Alver, Arne Maasik

The design adapts the program to a narrow and long plot, with a smooth slope, over the Atlantic shore.
Minimizing landscape impacts, and skipping the legal setback, the main volume “moulds” itself to the site’s topography through the cantilevered extension of the upper floors.

One of these projections, with near 8 meters, configures a balcony-terrace outside, hovering and opening onto the garden and the surrounding landscape. This imparts a horizontal “sliding” effect to the volumes, allowing a “de-materialization” of the house’s verticality.
On the “skin” of the building it is thus possible to understand the presence of the circulations and services that embrace, on the different floors, the central core and its structural “skeleton”.

The building on the corner of Ismail Qemali and 4 Shkurti (as is often the case in Mediterranean countries) is covered with a generous scattering of air-conditioners. What to do? Pretend they are not there or use the new colour concept to authenticate the “little white parasite-boxes with round, off-center, Cyclops-eye vent”. The Virtual Air-Conditioner Concept, scatters potential sites for future climatizers across the façade, a strategy which instantly legitimises the random placement of those already in service.

3XN is currently developing a radically daring yet surprisingly pragmatic idea. An idea that was awarded at this years MIPIM - with the MIPIM AR Future Projects Award 2006 in the category ‘Residential’…

At present, Copenhagen is experiencing rapid development. Hundreds of new apartments are being erected especially at the Northern Harbor (Nordhavnen), not far away from the city centre. This area is urged by us to develop into a playground for creative designs and new ways of perceiving the way we live.

LV Hall,Omotosando Building, Tokyo, Japan. 2003

The I.B.3 residential building is located in the Gemmayzé area on plot
# 595 Saifi in Beirut. Our design mission was developed around the
shell and core principle which consists of designing the structure of
the edifice, its facades and the common areas, leaving all the
inhabitable surfaces to be partitioned and finished by the architects
of the future owners of each residence. The particularity of the design
resides in the free plans proposed initially on all the levels of the
building. Every residence is developed around a different section
providing each apartment with high ceilings (4.35m to 5.5m) in the
reception areas. All apartments feature a split level and / or double
level section. The façade of the edifice is designed to accommodate and
compose with the variations in its openings that are a consequence of
the differences in plan and section of all the residences within the
building. Facades are finished in solid wood sections mounted on
modular aluminum frames. The envelope of the edifice is shaped by the
maximum allowable volume on its site. Residences in the I.B.3 building
should be regarded as suspended “urban villas”. Two townhouses are
located at the ground level, four residences are interlocked in the
main body of the building and a three storey penthouse occupies the top
levels of the building.

The project originates from the consideration of: the existing conflict between the necessity for urban densification and the preference of most people to live in the suburbs in a one-family house surrounded by their own garden on the one hand and; the attempt to create an innovative building type which preserves the superb view - not only for the happy few who can afford to live in these towers, but also for their neighbours and the passers-by - on the other hand.

eXtra-eXtra-Small House is located in Krakovo, the very centre of Ljubljana and at the same time in a historical village - once (in the Middle Ages) supplying the nearby monastery with fresh food - today highly protected historical area. The basic dimensions of the new house were already defined by law according to the volume of the pre-existing house.
The task was to integrate all residential functions in an extra small volume and to bring the sunlight to the living spaces in the ground floor through the roof openings with the in-direct sunlight, since the house faces north. The house is an urban holiday-home for a couple living in countryside.

material concept: rawness - fibre-cement panels, terrazzo, plywood, concrete - ‘béton brut’, iron, felt

design team: Aljosa Dekleva, Tina Gregoric
location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
client: private
project: 2002-2004
date of completion: October 2004
surface: 43 m2
price: 62.000 EUR
photo: Matevz Paternoster, Aljosa Dekleva