Richmond Firehall No.2 / HCMA
Context + Site
Articles by Daniel Sánchez
First Peoples House / Formline Architecture + Urbanism
Located at the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, this building was designed to accommodate the Indigenous Graduate Student Union. The building is comprised of classrooms, offices, study spaces, ceremonial spaces, and lounges for elders and students.
Shelter in Montaria / Carvalho Araújo
The shelter is located on steep terrain on the edge of the village, with a privileged view over the Serra d’Arga mountains. The building occupies the space of the existing ruin.
The Pyramid Viewpoint / BTE Architecture
The site is located on a peninsula overlooking the U.K.’s largest stretch of inland water, Loch Lomond. An existing cafe marks the entrance situation for visitors arriving either by car from the A82 or by boat. From the car park with adjoining jetty, a system of pathways lead onto the peninsula and continue along its exposed edges formed by big rocks, or through the site sheltered by trees and bushes. The rocks locate the site high above the water’s edge and a series of steps and easily accessible ramps lead the visitor through the sloped inside of the site. The pathways interlink, creating a parcour with rendezvous points adding emphasis to these junctions. The topography of the site allows the surrounding landscape to be experienced as a panorama, with the site itself visible from afar, like a rock amongst water.
Gohar Khatoon Girls’ School / Robert Hull + University of Washington
Located in the center Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan’s fourth largest city, the Gohar Khatoon Girls’ School replaces an older structure that was in an extreme state of disrepair and expands the capacity of a historically significant urban school. The 2,000 m2 complex provides space for kindergarten through grade twelve classes, serving at least 3,000 students or more a day.
Green House / Sean Godsell Architects
Alterations and additions to a small heritage listed timber cottage in inner suburban Melbourne. Planning and heritage requirements and construction costs fundamentally drove the outcome of this project. Our client came to us wanting a new house. For reasons only known and understood by the local authorities the existing cottage was deemed to be of some historical significance. We disagreed with that assessment but to no avail. It was a case of limp-wristed facadism by the authorities and heritage ‘experts’. Instead of abandoning our client we agreed to start from scratch, keeping the front section of the cottage and reworking it and then building a discrete fully new section at the rear of the block. I saw the project in a different light and chose to re-visit some projects that had inspired me as a young architect – Kazuo Shinohara’s ‘House in White’ and ‘House in Hanayama No 3’ and Tadao Ando’s ‘Row House in Sumiyoshi’ or ‘Azuma House’ as it is sometimes known. The ‘Row House in Sumiyoshi’ is a work of genius and I have written elsewhere about that building describing it as ‘a seminal work of the second half of the twentieth century’.
Loke Thye Kee Residences / Ministry of Design
Loke Thye Kee Residences is situated in the heart of Georgetown Penang, one of 5 Malaysian UNESCO world sites rich in heritage. MOD’s design draws inspiration from this heritage and specifically the historic Loke Thye Kee restaurant, its 100-year-old namesake and neighbor. Both the restaurant and the residences re developed by the same owner, 1919 Global Sdn Bhd.
House for Pottery Festival / Office for Environment Architecture
This is a house and atelier for a pottery artist family, located along a traffic circle at a station in suburban Osaka. The site is narrow flag-shaped (a rectangular site with a pole-like narrow path), with 3m of frontage and a depth of 34m. There is a large apartment building on the south side, and idle lands on the north and east sides. A distant view of the beautiful mountain range of Mt. Nijo can be seen in the east direction.
Interior renovation of an apartment in Les Corts / Sergi Pons
It’s about an apartment renovation located in Les Corts neighborhood in Barcelona city, categorized circa the Nineteenth century. The owner, Yuna -from Japanese origin and settled in Spain- has twocats: Tau andMisha. Originally, the apartment was full with partition walls, and rooms and hallways seemingly placed at random.
Öhringen Petting Zoo / Kresings Architektur
The ensemble’s formal shape interacts strongly with its particular use as well as with its urban context. The exposed site, which is situated in the southern portion of the “Schlossgarten” and in the immediate vicinity of the pond, allows the two volumes of the buildings in combination with the fence to be conveyed easily. Also multiple views from all directions are offered to people walking by and in especially to the little visitors to the petting zoo.