U House by Jorge Graca Costa

crisp white massing. m.

The U House located in Ericeira, a World Surfing Reserve, was designed for José Gregório three times national Surf champion and a well known big wave rider, his wife and two daughters. This 300 Square meter house occupies a big lot, surrounded by a dense mesh of trees, on top of a hill overlooking Saint Lorenzo Bay. Our mutual interest in sustainability didn’t keep us from wholeheartedly embracing modern design. The goal was to avoid green pronouncements, allowing to achieve ascetics and exciting architecture solutions, instead of designing a building fully controlled by superfluous green technologies and merely aggregating raw materials.

The house design emerges from the inevitability of protection of prevailing winds. The north wind dominant in the summer and the stormy south wind dominant in the winter carrying the rain from the sea. Therefore the central idea was a design based in the reinterpretation of ancient’s Mediterranean patio houses, creating a patio sitting on a plateau embraced by two long arms interconnected by a third body, never ignoring the fabulous views to the west even in interior spaces. Abundant glazing brings in natural light while a high performance envelope controls temperatures. Eco-friendly Interior finishes and art work made from recycled materials take place in prominent places in the house.

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Video — Distorting Mirrors Secret Garden by Chilean Architects Guillermo Hevia García and Nicolás Urzúa

fantastic project in santiago’s marque araucano. m.

Chilean architects Guillermo Hevia García and Nicolás Urzúa have created a concealed garden fenced in by distorting mirrors for the Santiago edition of MoMA’s Young Architects Program.

Named Your Reflection, the installation invites visitors to the city’s Parque Araucano to step into an enclosure where they will discover infinite reflections of grassy hillocks, shallow pools of water and wild flowers.

Inside, the immediate surroundings are completely concealed to them — apart from high-rise buildings and overhead tree branches — and they are likely to encounter someone playing a piano, or other kinds of musical performers.

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Optimist Eyewear, Greece by 314 Architecture

creative design by the athens based firm. m.

designed by athens-based 314 architecture studio, the optical shop ‘c_29 / optimist’, is part of an interwar listed building, and encompasses a total surface 90 square meters. located in the centre of chalkida, greece, the space is airy and expands along the central market and the back courtyard / patio which is formed in the core of the building. the edifice itself is a composite construction with the ground floor being made of bearing masonry and the two floors of reinforced concrete and filling brickwork.

the main design aspect was the creation of a gradient technique in the texture of materiality in order to emphasize the reflection and the absorbance of light. this gradient tool continues to exist and plays a significant role even to the choice of materials, resulting in their sound existence or their theoretical absence in the formed space. some utilitarian objects were transformed into prismatic sculptures.

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