Sunday, 15 June 2014

Nishi Commercial is a major new development housing government departments, private offices, a cinema and cafes.

04:09  , ,  No comments

Landscaping And Mentoring: Bob Earl – Oculus Landscape
Builder: CBD Contracting / Nikias Diamond
Engineer: Co-Struct Structural & Civil Engineers
Project Management: James Bichard – Arup / Molonglo Group
From the architect. Located in NewActon, a diverse new precinct in Canberra, Nishi Commercial is a major new development housing government departments, private offices, a cinema and cafes. The lobby, designed by March Studio, projects a unique identity through thousands of lengths of repurposed timber, blurring boundaries while directing views and movement. A grand stair – the stage for performances as much as idle procrastination – leads up to the HotelHotel lobby and bar. In the stair the timber is heavy, grounded, a stacked agglomeration. Freed to scatter up the walls and across the ceiling, the suspended timber filters exterior light and views into and from internal spaces. Spidery, pixellated shadows are cast on the floor and bare walls.
Courtesy of March Studio
The stair links Nishi Commercial to Nishi Residential, a multi-storey apartment building, housing 2 floors of hotel rooms, wrapped around a central courtyard and light well. The ground floor contains HotelHotel’s lobby, reception, concierge and bar, as well as retail and hospitality tenancies. On the ground floor of the boutique hotel, March Studio was engaged to create spaces which encouraged residents, guests and visitors to linger in what can open be a transient space.
© Rodney Eggleston
The walls in the hotel lobby – and the seating, the benches, the counters – are an attempt to bring the handmade into the rigorous, polished building around it. Materials – custom gluelam timber, precast concrete beams – are allowed to sit, unadorned, stacked in a simple manner, overlapping, their joints overrunning and poking out. The singular system – the same for both materials – is stretched where needed, opened where useful, broken where forced.
A large space is enveloped in this manner and then diffused, variegated by operations within these rules, to allow for spaces which have their own character. Doors that are part opening, part display, continue this language in apparently weightless steel. This steel is picked up to lighten the bar, where stacked concrete props up sleek steel, which weaves into and halts the flow of suspended timber bursting up the stairs from the commercial lobby. Above the seating in front of the bar, large holes have been punched into the concrete slab capping the space. These portholes allow glimpses into the courtyard above and natural light to enter the space.
Floor Plan
The main entrance to Nishi Residential, opposite the linking stair, was also part of March Studio’s brief. Outside is a canopy which shrugs off its weight with flowing timber recalling the Commercial Lobby. The entrance airlock is lined on two walls and ceiling with what could be steel punchcards for an ancient mainframe. Filling the gaps punched in these steel sandwich panels are amber marbles, thick glass which filters the light and warms the space. The directionality of the commercial lobby is mirrored here, in the lines of punched holes on wall and ceiling, which scatter across the rear wall and flow into the stacked timber of the HotelHotel library.

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Póvoa de Santa Iria, Portugal

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© Joao Morgado
Architects: Topiaris Landscape Architecture
Location: , Portugal
Landscape Authors: Luis Ribeiro, Teresa Barão, Catarina Viana
Architecture Author: Olavo Dias
Area: 15,000 sqm
Year: 2013
Photographs: Joao Morgado
   
Landscape Design Team: Ana Lemos, Elsa Calhau, João Oliveira, Rita Salgado, Sara Coelho
Architecture Team: Atelier Difusor De Arquitectura
Architecture Design Team: Pedro Santos, Sérgio Marques, António Marciano
© Joao Morgado
From the architect. The Tagus Linear Park is an area of 15 000 sq m that was conquered by the surrounding communities of the industrial private sector and was felt as a democratic intervention by those forever deprived of access to the River. For the first time, people of adjacent urban communities are given recreation and leisure opportunity in direct contact with the riverside, which was until recently blocked by large industrial lots. People of all ages, from different walks of life and cultural backgrounds are now invited to come and enjoy a diverse palette of equipment and activities: from sports, fishing, walking and cycling to environmental education, or simply to get an eyeful of the landscape.
© Joao Morgado
The objective was to rethink urban public space located in a complex, unexpected, almost improbable universe of urban, industrial, agricultural and natural landscape. Aiming to keep the ‘essence of the space’ the team designed a unique greenway, grounded in the landscape’s natural and cultural features, with a multitude of recreational and leisure options, safeguarding the existing natural systems and promoting the ecological regeneration of damaged areas.
© Joao Morgado
The Park combines two different typologies of spaces: A single multifunctional area named ‘Praia Dos Pescadores’ (Fishermen’s Beach), set by the riverside within a former sand deposit, and 6 km of Pedestrian Trails associated with dirt roads, waterlines banks (streams and drainage ditches), which converge to Praia dos Pescadores, coming from urban and natural areas. The connection between the ‘beach’ and natural areas is made through a 700m long raised wooden path by which a Bird Observatory built from old pallets can be reached.
Location Plan
The “Praia dos Pescadores” contains a set of diverse and complementary equipment primarily intended for environmental education, leisure and informal sports: fishing platforms and shelters, picnic areas, a volleyball court, a simple playground with recycled tires, as well as platforms for sunbathing meet here in these 3ha of riverside front, to create an interesting and unique Playscape. The name was inspired by the fishermen, who were sceptical at the beginning, but soon realized that the renovated space kept the “sense of place” that has attracted them to it in the past. Their constant presence has proven to be a sustainable and efficient surveillance strategy. Lighting is 100% solar.
© Joao Morgado
The Centre for Environmental and Landscape Interpretation, planned for temporary exhibitions and events, is built in a modular system using recycled maritime containers. The structure is slightly raised from the ground, generating a spatial pattern that takes advantage of the views towards the ecosystems nearby.
© Joao Morgado
The network of paths, made from concrete slabs, designs the main spatial structure, connecting all components. Vegetation is composed mainly of native species and was planted in clusters featuring a specific formal pattern, contrasting with the extensive sand area. The densely planted groups are protected by a mesh of individual wooden poles to help capture and secure sand, and also to protect plants from being trampled in their early stages of development.

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