Articles by Martita Vial

This is an urban regeneration retail project in the chic shopping precinct of Ponsonby Road, Auckland, New Zealand.

JJW Architects invite the city into the school and connect the school with the city, while utilizing the harbor location by using the water as an extra classroom. At the same time varied spaces create numerous, different scale gathering opportunities for students – from the school assembly to intimate learning sessions between two classmates. The School has been awarded several awards including the WAN Education Award 2016.

Sentralen consists of Christiania Sparebank’s old bank building from 1899, and an adjacent office building from 1900 (architects Henrik Nissen and Ivar Cock). In 2012 Atelier Oslo and Kima Arkitektur started the work of turning these two buildings into a new cultural hub of Oslo, offering co-working spaces for cultural producers and social innovators.

A visual and physical continuum between indoors and outdoors, generating a perception that compounds an already complete wellness experience achieved by harnessing the spirit of place.

Making the old one last longer because of the new: for centuries, architecture has done nothing else than this exercise of reuse, until the demand for recycling stagnated by an abundance of materials. Although the development of sustainable use encourages the recycling of materials such as those of buildings, reuse is not always an obvious thing and in the first instance it conflicts with the wear and tear of the objects that one wishes to reuse. It therefore seemed difficult to give a new life to this vacant agricultural building in the rural part of the Belgian municipality of Grimbergen. But the owner – a family who lived in the city – and touched by the beauty of this mini-ruin, asked the architect to design a contemporary project. Other important requirements were the preservation of the view of the underlying agricultural land, and a long-term energy-independent home. In view of the latter, all possibilities are foreseen to invest even more in renewable energy sources. A design was proposed by the architects that would visually contrast with that of the existing home with livestock stables in decline. For this purpose a ruin shell was created that immediately formed an acoustic buffer to the street and the surrounding area.

Architect Razvan Oprescu designed this house for him and his family in Bucharest, Romania.

The owners approached us to design a courtyard home to house their multi-generational family. They would like a house that allowed water and greenery to flow through the house, reminding them of their Peranakan roots. They also asked that the house seeks inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, which they visited once and it left a strong impression on them for its engagement with nature. 

The Coral House was located on a square flat site in a quiet residential neighbourhood in Singapore. Designed for a young couple with three small children, the house aimed to create dynamic spaces that encourage play and interaction. The house embraces Singapore’s tropical climate by creating open, well ventilated spaces in an interlocking composition of building, garden, pool, pond and roof gardens that integrates as much as nature as possible in the in the densely urban environment of Singapore. 

This significant piece of infill architecture in Copenhagen is located in the district of Vanløse, where it replaces a couple of worn buildings.

The South Beach development covers an entire city block between the Marina and Civic District in the heart of downtown Singapore. Combining new construction with the restoration of existing buildings, the mixed-use, energy efficient new urban quarter brings together places to live and work with shops, cafes, restaurants, a hotel and public spaces. A wide landscaped pedestrian avenue – a green spine – weaves through the site and is protected by a large canopy, which shelters the light-filled public spaces beneath from the extremes of the tropical climate.