New York's Joe Doucet has designed a less "uncomfortable and awkward" face shield to protect against coronavirus that could be worn like a pair of sunglasses.
Doucet's conceptual design comprises a curved, see-through guard that fronts a dark sunglass lenses and arms. The minimal shield would be put on like a pair of glasses.
The designer developed the face shield in response to the question: "how do we encourage mass adoption of an unwanted necessity?". He hopes this version could be a more attractive option of personal protective equipment (PPE) for non-medical users.
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"Covid-19 is understandably going to have a longterm effect on how we re-engage with daily activities and the wider world," said Doucet.
"Until a vaccination is confirmed to be effective and rolled out through a global, mass immunisation programme, we all will have to integrate forms of social distancing and PPE into our daily routines."
Face shields are an effective way to protect the eyes, nose and mouth from Covid-19 infection. They are typically used in conjunction with masks and limited to frontline medical workers who are most at risk of infection. But they could become more commonly worn by the general public as outbreaks continue.
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In a recent interview with Dezeen, US physician and epidemiologist Michael Edmond said the public should wear a shield whenever they leave home.
Doucet believes, however, that current designs aren't comfortable enough to encourage people to wear them.
"Studies have shown that face shields or visors are much more effective than surgical style face masks, but in their current, basic format they are uncomfortable and awkward," he added.
"It is hoped that improving the basic face shield design will encourage far greater uptake of its usage and help everyone adjust to the 'new normal' that awaits us."
The designer has envisioned the shield in visuals he created with 3D design tools – a new skill he acquired in lockdown. "I modeled these in Fusion 360 and rendered in Blender," he continued. "No photoshoots happening these days."
He create the renderings to look like a fashion shoot with models wearing the devices in empty streets..
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Doucet, who is currently searching for a brand or manufacturing partner to produce the shield, imagines that the entire device would be made out of polycarbonate and manufactured in the same way as typical sunglasses.
A number of architects and designers have re-focused design skills to create PPE, as hospitals and medical workers face shortages amid the crisis.
Car brand MINI is closing A/D/O, its creative hub in Brooklyn, blaming the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
A/D/O said that MINI will not renew investment "given the current climate of uncertainty resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic" in a statement released today.
Its rentable studios The Workspace, The Shop and the open space for casual working, exhibitions and events, will be shut by 31 May.
"A/D/O was launched by MINI to empower the design community to explore creative solutions to improve urban life and it has always been a communal effort," said A/D/O managing director Nate Pinsley.
"We are profoundly grateful to our Greenpoint neighbours, the international creative community and our Brooklyn-based team and partners who made this unusual endeavour into something truly unique."
URBAN-X by MINI accelerator to continue virtually
The Rule of Thirds restaurant by Sunday Hospitality Group, which opened last month in place of the initial Norman eatery, will continue to operate separately.
The car brand will also continue with URBAN-X by MINI, its accelerator for startups focused on city life. It said the initiative will continue to function virtually during the pandemic and later find a new physical space.
Established in an old warehouse 2017, following a conversion designed by New York studio nArchitects, A/D/O was intended as a space for designers and the public to congregate and share ideas.
"Although we've made the difficult decision to close our doors, we're confident the idea which has permeated everything we've done – the belief that good design can change the world – will continue to inspire everyone who has been a part of our journey," Pinsley added.
Museums, events and shows are shut, cancelled or postponed
The coronavirus pandemic has caused lockdown restrictions in countries across the globe and an economic downturn that has been likened to the 2008 financial crash.
Across the world, museums have been shut and events and shows have either been cancelled or postponed due to the crisis further stifling activity. These include Salone del Mobile and the Venice Architecture Biennale, which are considered the design and architecture industry's biggest events.
A number of creative businesses are at risk and fear they could go out of business as the economy slows down. The American Insitute of Architects recently asked for improved aid, including loans and tax breaks, to help architecture firms in the US.
Architecture firm Imbue Design has designed this low-lying off-grid residence on a desolate, grassy lot in Idaho for a family to "distance themselves from social stresses".
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Boar Shoat was designed for a family looking for an isolated place it could go to as a retreat in Paris, Idaho. Its name is a made-up term that the clients translate as "youthful vivacity".
Imbue Design has nestled the 2,125-square-foot (197-square-metre) compound, which comprises a garage, main residence, and guest house, into a grassy berm surrounded by the Rocky Mountains.
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"He wanted a retreat – a place where he and his family could distance themselves from social stresses, withdraw digital connection, and commune with nature and each other," said Imbue Design, which worked with local company YNot Construction on the project.
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Three separated structures clad with strips of brown metal panelling from Kingspan enclose a large outdoor living space.
An expansive roof canopy layered above the connects each of them to form a single volume. Cut into the covering is an oculus that pours light onto the patio, which extends outward from the tri-form structure.
"Intended as a crash pad and base camp, three small structures gather under an open-air pavilion, encapsulating the client's main concept for the project – a spartan shelter within the Bear River range," the studio added.
Since there are no utility connections nearby, the house implements several passive and off-grid design strategies, including photovoltaic panelling on the roof and insulation and sealing techniques to achieve a tight building envelope.
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The array of solar panels on the roof generate the electricity and heat to power the house, while water is supplied by a cistern container, located in the garage, that is refilled regularly by a local supplier.
All of the windows and sliding glass doors are positioned to take in optimal sunlight that warms the interiors in wintertime, while the roof overhangs provide shade and minimise heat in summer months.
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Inside each of the buildings, wood planks line the ceiling and concrete floors are left untreated to preserve the markings that will be left on them over time. All of the interior walls are white to form a backdrop for the artwork created by the client's daughters.
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Sleek wood cabinetry contrasts against the marble backsplash and countertop in the kitchen. A wood dining table extends out from the island counter.
All of the furnishings were selected by the client's wife and include a curvaceous recliner, a rugged coffee table and rectangular black fireplace.
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Imbue Design is a Utah architecture studio founded in 2008. It has completed a number of other houses on rugged, mountainous sites including a timber-clad residence built around a central courtyard and a rusty steel dwelling formed by two L-shaped volumes.
This exclusive photography by Monica Nouwens captures the razing of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as part of controversial plans to redevelop the site with a Peter Zumthor-designed building.
LACMA's demolition continued as part of essential activities during the city's coronavirus lockdown as announced last month.
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The photos by locally based Nouwens capture construction workers amid rubble piles, machinery and red tape. They are wearing face covers, gloves and glasses to form protective gear to help mitigate the potential spread of Covid-19 on-site.
The demolition will raze of the Ahmanson, Art of the Americas, Bing, and Hammer buildings that are described as having "significant structural problems".
Zumthor has faced opposition and setbacks with the project since he unveiled the scheme in 2013.
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The Swiss architect initially proposed demolishing the 1965 building by William L Pereira and a 1980s extension by Hardy Holzmann Pfeiffer Associates, and replacing them with an undulating black form that matched the size of the current buildings
When concerns were raised that the new building would damage the nearby La Brea Tar Pits, he introduced a revised, smaller version one year later.
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A key feature is a bridge that will extend over Wilshire Boulevard – one of LA's biggest and busiest roads. Zumthor then revised this scheme again with a new, even smaller iteration.
Protestors of the design recently launched an unofficial competition called LACMA not LackMA.
It calls for an alternative proposal after finding Zumthor's "inadequate and dysfunctional".
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Six shortlisted designs by Barkow Leibinger, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Kaya Design, Paul Murdoch Architects, Reiser + Umemoto, and TheeAe are intended encourage the museum board and the County Board of Supervisors to review the scheme,
However, Zumthor did receive support from an unlikely source, when movie star Brad Pitt spoke up for the Swiss architect at a planning consultation. The actor described the latest design as a "mastery of light and shadow".
"LACMA belongs to the people of Los Angeles County and it should reflect the tremendous diversity, creativity, and openness to change that can be found here," reads a headline on the buildinglacma.org, a website ostensibly tracking the design and construction of the controversial, squiggle of a proposal by Swiss architect Zumthor.
Such marketing copy, written the voice of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) director Michael Govan, is meant to rally support (public and financial) under a banner of shared values. But that last phrase – openness to change that can be found here – is suspect on two accounts.
While all but the most essential workers were home under shelter-in-place orders, demolition crews began
In a time of semi-facts and dog whistles, "openness to change" is a riposte to the public campaigns and individuals advocating to preserve the original buildings or, at least, seriously reconsider a $650-million (£523-million) design that reduces the museum's gallery square footage by up to 10 per cent yet willfully spans Wilshire Boulevard with the aplomb of a pedestrian overpass.
By suggesting opponents are closed-minded or stuck in the past, the website's language throws shade at those who had hoped that critical essays and advertisements in the Los Angeles and New York Times would slow down the inevitable destruction of four buildings on the museum's campus.
"Found here" presents a different shade of the truth. In April, while all but the most essential workers were home under shelter-in-place orders, demolition crews began tearing down the three structures by LA modernist architect William Pereira that were part of the original 1965 scheme, as well as the never-loved 1986 addition by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates. As of last week, the museum's Bing Theater reduced to a pile of debris.
At some point in the near future we will put on real pants and emerge to find chunks of cultural infrastructure gone
The real truth is that there's no longer a "here" there. Bruce Goff's beautifully weird Japanese Pavilion overlooks a hole and an excavator.
Whether one supports Zumthor's design, grieves for the Pereira buildings, or neither (like me), the cruelness of demolishing LACMA, a significant piece of LA architecture, at a moment when Angelenos are unable to bear witness should not be ignored.
The Covid-19 pandemic has put necessary pause on civic life. We can't congregate, we can't go to museums, yet our expectations remind us that this contraction from of the public sphere is only temporary. At some point in the near future we will put on real pants and emerge to find chunks of cultural infrastructure gone.
Half of LACMA will be erased. The LA County budget that underwrites $125 million (£100 million) of the new building's cost will be in tatters. Funders will be gun shy. And all we will be left with is the museum's ambiguous future in the form of a construction shed surrounding a ditch seeping tar.
The museum as hole in the ground is symbolic of the shuttering of other cultural outlets
Govan, of course, doesn't share such belief in LACMA's uncertainty. In a 9 April project update on LACMA's website, he expressed confidence in construction staying on schedule and funders committed to the project, writing "our new building is a powerful and visible signal to Los Angeles of renewed vitality and an engine for recovery after this crisis".
But the museum as hole in the ground is symbolic of the shuttering of other cultural outlets and canceled public programing. It's impossible to predict which galleries and arts organisations will have the funds to reopen.
Over the course of his 14-year tenure at LACMA, Govan succeeded in making the museum campus more than a destination for blockbuster shows and selfies in front of Chris Burden's Urban Light. The architecture, new and old, was pretty mediocre, but Angelenos would hang out there, listen to music, grab a coffee. Activities that showed proof of concept for a renewed civic life in a city that is often falsely portrayed as having none.
LACMA's mash-up of structures on Wilshire Boulevard in Hancock Park offered informality and in-between space
These days, the ideas of "museum as destination" and "experience" often overshadow more old-fashioned notions of "civic identity" or "pedagogy". Each one of these four concepts get pretty wobbly under the gaze of decolonisation, when the onus for one institution (or one building) to represent plurality is shaky at best. But LACMA's mash-up of structures on Wilshire Boulevard in Hancock Park offered informality and in-between space rather than heroic unity.
As a director skilled in bridging the worlds of Hollywood industry and the global art scene, Govan redefined LACMA through the lens of contemporary art and effectively obscured its roots as an encyclopedic museum. Especially with the openings of two additions: the Broad Contemporary Art Museum building in 2008 and the Resnick Pavilion two years later.
Both buildings by Renzo Piano will be incorporated into the Zumthor campus redesign and both reflect an ambient museum architectural aesthetic: big boxes housing well-lit and endlessly flexible galleries.
Activist group is petitioning museum trustees and Los Angeles county and city officials to stop demolition
In thinking about what LACMA and its wide-ranging permanent collection means for Los Angeles, writer and independent curator Greg Goldin touches on the founding of the county's first museum of art and natural history in 1913, a Beaux-Arts structure in Exposition Park that would later evolve into to the art museum and the city's Museum of Natural History.
"LACMA grows out of Los Angeles as a city that was coming onto its own and making its own identity," he explained. "LA wasn't going to be a reflection of itself, we could look outward at other cultures and see how those cultures were reflected our own. It was a move away from provincialism and towards cosmopolitanism."
Goldin, along with architecture critic Joseph Giovannini, co-chairs of The Citizens' Brigade to Save LACMA. The activist group is petitioning museum trustees and Los Angeles county and city officials to stop demolition and revisit plans.
Products of a three-week charette, the schemes aren't particularly great. Then again, neither is Zumthor's
In late April, the Citizen's Brigade announced the winners of an ideas competition to redesign the museum. Entitled LACMA not LackMA, a dig at the reduced square footage of the Zumthor scheme, the selection of six finalists is meant to show a widening of possible futures for the site and critique the lack of public review and input that has marked Govan's process.
The winning designs for LACMA's East Campus include entries from Coop Himmelb(l)au, RUR Architecture, and Reiser + Umemoto, among others. Some are more expressive – Coop Himmelb(l)au's features a bubble to rival the Academy Museum's sphere – and others practical.
Artists, architects, Angelenos all have vested interest in the future of the campus
Paul Murdoch Architects, the only LA-based finalist, proposed a multi-story glazed box resembling a department store. Products of a three-week charette, the schemes aren't particularly great. Then again, neither is Zumthor's. He's had seven years.
Still, there is something hopeful, even resilient in seeing more concepts for LACMA rather than continuing an exhausting debate over the merits of a single design. Govan's efforts to push forward his vision denied the public a process to reimagine architecture that represents the culture of LA today.
Artists, architects, Angelenos all have vested interest in the future of the campus, its potential to inspire creativity and foster civic life. While we all sit at home imagining the moment when we can once again flock to art openings, concerts, and coffees with friends, I doubt anyone is dreaming of a hole.
Stockholm studio Halleroed has paired carpet floors, dropped ceilings and wood panelling for a New York office evocative of a David Lynch movie.
Located in Manhattan's Garment District, the office is for a company in the creative industry that has almost all of the floors in the 17th-storey building.
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Halleroed, led by Swedish designer Christian Halleröd, was tasked with designing a level for the executives of the company on the 16th floor.
Measuring approximately 1600 square metres, the project includes a reception, private offices, a board room and a communal area.
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Cladding much of the walls are panels with a veneer of Makore wood native to central and western Africa, while floors are either concrete or carpet in either blue or cream.
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An executive office has been designed in a corner of the floor, with wooden panelling that frames six windows and cream curtains placed behind the panels.
The design is modelled on movies by American filmmaker David Lynch, Halleroed said, whose powerful compositions are almost surreal.
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The office is complete with a private bathroom with a blue, enamelled sink and marble floors with brown and white tones.
Another office has a lighter and softer character with pale walls covered in linen and Oregon Pine framing.
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The office's communal area is in the middle of the floor plan and formed by a freestanding wooden cube in a matching warm tone. The volume hosts a coffee area and cubicles.
Smaller offices and rooms are created around the perimeter with glass walls and metal seams lacquered in blue, high gloss paint.
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"The concept is to keep the feeling of the raw open space and add just millwork the space, not actual walls," Halleroed said.
"The contrast between the raw, industrial space and the refined millwork pieces intensifies the character of the building and the new additions."
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A large table is enamelled in red and has matching red chairs with cream cushions. The same red gloss adorns a nearby countertop.
Much of the furniture in the project is vintage, including a pale sofa by Vladimir Kagan in the reception area, leather Cab chairs by Mario Bellini, a table by Japanese-American woodworker George Nakashima and wood chairs by Pierre Jeanneret.
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A cobalt blue desk in high gloss anchors the reception area with a matching light fixture above. Panelled walls enclose the room, and the ceiling is suspended and offset from the walls for a floating feeling.
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Halleroed was founded in 1998 in Stockholm by Christian and Ruxandra Halleröd and is known for minimalistic interiors for fashion brands, including stores for Axel Arigato in Copenhagen, Byredo and Acne Studios.
The Met's Costume Institute has made a short Youtube video of the museum's annual major spring exhibition to coincide with its original opening date this week. The rescheduled opening date is still uncertain.
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Called About Time: Fashion and Duration, the exhibition is based on French 20th-century philosopher Henri Bergson's idea of time as la durée, or duration, something which can be measured through images but never perceived as a whole.
Lasting nearly 12 minutes, the virtual tour follows the intended format for the exhibition by showing historical and contemporary creations designs side by side to reveal similarities – such as a 1895 Mrs Arnold and a 2004 creation by Comme Des Garçons.
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Images of the dresses – which are taken in The Costume Institute's collection – are shown with the year they were created and details of the designer or era to gradually explore fashion from 1870 to present day.
Other likenesses are drawn between a 1902 Morin Blossier dress and 2018 design by Nicolas Ghesquiere for Louis Vuitton.
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Throughout the black-and-white movie illustrations of pared-back clock faces allude to the exhibit's time-travelling theme.
The moving images are also interspersed with quotations from novels by English writer Virginia Woolf such as Mrs Dalloway and Orlando. Woolf, who died in 1941, will serve as the exhibition's "ghost narrator".
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About Time: Fashion and Duration was due to open on 7 May 202o, forming part of the museum's 150th-anniversary celebrations. The timeline used for the outfits begins with 1870 – the year The Met was founded.
The real-like showcase will include 160 items and a set designed Es Devlin.
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The annual Costume Institute Benefit, also known as the Met Gala, was due to take place last night to coincide with the opening of the exhibition. It was also canceled due to the pandemic.
The Met closed its main building on Fifth Avenue, as well as its Met Breuer and Met Cloisters locations, in early March in response to the emergence of outbreaks of coronavirus in New York City.
A number of other events in North America like Toronto technology conference Collision, the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin have also decided to replace their physical events with virtual versions.
Following the gala, trend forecaster Li Edelkoort said that the celebrities attending not only misunderstood the concept of camp, but showed levels of waste that will lead to a backlash against displays of decadence in an Opinion piece for Dezeen.
US firm Koning Eizenberg Architecture left worn-looking ornate walls, brickwork and columns inside this museum for children in Pittsburgh, which occupies a historic library that was struck by lightning.
The existing building, known as Carnegie Free Library, was commissioned in 1886 for the public by philanthropist and industrialist Andrew Carnegie.
It was completed by John L Smithmeyer and Paul J Pelz in the late 1890s and registered a historic building in 1974.
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It continued to serve as a public library until the clock tower was struck by lightning in 2006, causing a chunk of granite weighing three tons to fall through the roof. The damage forced the library to relocate.
KEA's project sought to restore the damaged structure but also reveal the original architecture by peeling back the additions that had been made over the years.
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Collonades that form archways with ornamental details are now left in a weathered, unfinished state, with patchy surfaces and cracked or peeling renders. They match brickwork and flooring with worn-out markings that are similarly exposed.
These areas typically form open spaces for casual activity, like a first-storey reading area or the open, ground-floor entrance. The latter is covered with permanent installation Over View, designed by US studio FreelandBuck.
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Commissioned as part of the renovation, it hangs from the ceiling and is intended to represent a 3D-drawing of the surrounding space including the archways.
MuseumLab comprises three exhibiton spaces, two learning labs as well as programming space for young teens and older. Throughout, existing details are teamed with contemporary additions.
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The Santa Monica firm added a white-mesh structure that forms a new staircase and elevated walkway topped by a skylight. The intervention delicately contrasts surrounding stained brickwork to wrap around an open area suited for gatherings.
One of the performing spaces is located in a room with brickwork walls and arched windows, while the ceiling is painted bright white to contrast darker details.
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Ornate ceilings meanwhile top a double-height space punctured by a weathered metal beam. The large room forms the children's workshop complete with large benches and machinery.
Exhibition spaces are located in a vaulted space with brickwork and stone walls that are painted white to form a suitable backdrop. Additional spaces are also painted white and include large classrooms and meeting areas.
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Now MuseumLab is complete, the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh is the largest cultural campus in the US dedicated to children.
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Pittsburgh is a western city in Pennsylvania. Other cultural projects in the US State include the Frank Gehry-designed renovation of Philadelphia's Museum of Art.
Three white-brick chimneys rise from this house in Virginia, which US studio T W Ryan Architecture designed to reference a modernist Mies van der Rohe house and a nearby plantation.
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Three Chimney House comprises a series of structures that are organised in a Y-shape on a 45-acre (18-hectare) property outside of Charlottesville in horse country.
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The slender, white chimneys reach 30-feet (nine-metres) high in the sky, enhancing the home's varied construction. Two double-height structures have gables while a low-slung, single-storey volume is topped with a slanting roofline and links to a flat-roofed portion.
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Unifying the design are brick walls with flush mortar joints painted white and copper roofs that extend down to form exterior walls and which will patinate over time.
T W Ryan Architecture designed the residence for a young family with deep roots in the region that wanted the house to link with the natural landscape and the area's historic colonial homes.
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"We wanted to create a house that is pure and primitive in form, defined by chimneys, walls and roofs," said studio founder Thomas W Ryan.
"The hope was that the construction success of the house would be measured against the nearby colonial forbearers rather than the modern houses under construction today."
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In response, the studio took cues from a variety of local sources such as Thomas Jefferson's nearby Monticello house, which has as a natural copper roof, and the chimneys of the 18th-century plantation Stratford Hall – not far from where the clients grew up.
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"The architecture takes inspiration from traditional Southern colonial houses," Ryan added.
"Abstracting and re-interpreting these materials and archetypal elements, both the client and architect envisioned finding a timeless yet contemporary voice for Southern architecture in America."
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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Brick Country House that he conceived 1924 but never built also formed a precedent for the project. It influenced the white barrier walls that extend from the house to mark the sloping terrain.
"It serves as an inspiration for how the natural landscape can be made clearer by the built construction, while not being tamed," Ryan added.
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Upon entering via the single-storey structure, called the Main Hall, is a large room with a soaring ceiling. A fireplace divides a sitting area on one side and a shared kitchen and dining area opposite.
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Sliding glass doors access a patio and provide unobstructed views of the Shenandoah Mountains and the sunset. A powder room, two closets, a laundry and a living room are nearby.
Connected to the Main Hall to the south is a volume with two bedrooms on the ground floor and a master suite upstairs – called the Residential Wing. A detached volume is on the north side and contains an art studio and a guest suite.
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Interiors are pared-down with white walls and pale wood floors. Vertical cedar boards with a black stain clad feature walls as a nod to the property's black cedar post fencing, as well as barns and farmhouses.
A variety of window sizes in square and rectangular shapes frame country views and usher in natural light.
The AIA released the Re-occupancy Assessment Tool today to promote a safer re-occupancy of buildings as lockdown and isolation measures ease in the US.
Developed by the AIA's Disaster Assistance Committee, the 19-page document is geared towards re-opening buildings that closed as part of non-essential businesses, like offices, schools, restaurants and stores in a safe manner.
"Design is a response to the conditions, needs and functions of our society," said AIA president Jane Frederick. "This may be the most pivotal and defining moment in our lifetime for design."
"Architects are needed in this crisis to help safely transition our communities back to offices, schools and the many other places that are important in shaping our daily lives," she added.
AIA offers strategies to reduce Covid-19 exposure
The tool kit offers strategies and measures that can help mitigate exposure to the novel coronavirus, based on the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) Hierarchy of Controls for managing workplace hazards.
The CDC, World Health Organisation (WHO) and others have already created resources for reoccupying buildings, but the AIA's tool kit is unique because it addresses the Hierarchy of Controls.
The AIA report includes the CDC upside-triangle model for the controls associated with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). It includes a five-tier hierarchy of controls for Covid-19 that are ranked from most effective, like social isolation, to least effective, such as personal protective equipment (PPE).
Three of the five controls are addressed in the AIA tool kit. The first is physical or engineering controls, including ventilation and barriers; the second is administrative controls, like working from home, staggered schedules and hand-washing; and the third is PPE.
Tool kit advocates for systematic changes to buildings
"It proposes that the best ways of controlling the hazards are to systematically remove them rather than primarily relying on workers or the public to reduce their own exposure," said the AIA.
Conditions in the tool kit include six-feet (1.8-metres) physical distancing, installing barriers like sneeze guards and movable partitions, utilising natural daylight and operable windows. It also suggests reducing the use of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, which the CDC links to spread.
"A CDC report cites an outbreak of Covid-19 possibly stemming from strong air conditioner airflow," the AIA report states.
Other elements include spacing furniture apart, using touchless systems, installing antimicrobial surfaces and using portable room air cleaners with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters.
Measures geared towards grocery stores and shops also included
Each aspect is accompanied by a series of checkboxes to note whether they are essential or desirable. There are three subcategories – maximise operations, restricted occupancy and full occupancy – to guide the levels of controls that are needed.
The tool kit also includes measures geared towards grocery stores and shops, like restricting the number of persons in wait areas, limiting the number of customers, dedicated hours for high-risk customers and designing a process to ensure visitors are distanced.
Malcolm Davis Architecture was enlisted to renovate the residence located in Noe Valley, a neighbourhood in the California city known for its streets lined with Victorian and Edwardian style homes.
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Called Noe Valley Residence, the project maintained many of the house's traditional elements, including its bay window and beige stucco facade to preserve its connection with the neighbourhood.
To modernise and expand the house, the firm added large glass windows and a rear extension that spans two levels to the rear of the house. It joins a number of projects in the city that have traditional fronts and contemporary extensions in the back.
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With the addition, the studio was able to increase the house's size from 1,900 square feet (176.5 square metres) to 3,000 square feet (278.7 square metres).
"The goal of this Noe Valley renovation and expansion was to maintain a connection to the neighbourhood context, while maximising access to daylight, the garden and the views beyond," the studio said.
"Reinterpreted and expanded in a modern vocabulary, the house is now a relaxed and inviting family home."
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Grey lap siding lined with a row of windows covers the upper portion of the rear facade. Vertically laid cedar wood clads the rear extension that juts out from the ground floor of the existing structure.
A deck on top of the wood addition is fronted with four panes of glass that form a railing facing the grassy backyard, which is divided into several small courtyards and patio spaces.
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Along the northern side of the house, the studio placed a series of skylights over existing wood framing that was repurposed and left exposed. Light streams through the gaps between the beams to project a pattern of diagonal stripes against the interior walls.
Malcolm Davis Architecture worked with local designer Lori Yeomans to design the bright interiors.
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In the kitchen, the white walls and cabinetry are contrasted by the ceiling clad with cedar wood planks. The large white island at the centre of the room is also lined with a row of the wood slabs on one of its faces.
Similar cedar accents feature in other parts of the house including as a decorative wall in a bedroom and on the built-in coat rack in the entry hall.
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Other elements of the design include a thin desk and shelving unit built into a small alcove, a black textured fireplace and pair of sliding glass doors that open to the wood deck overlooking the backyard.
Amagansett Modular is a 1800-square-foot (167-square-metre) weekend residence on a small wooded site in the hamlet on Long Island's south shore.
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The clients, a family with three kids, had a limited budget, and were open to exploring unconventional building materials and methods.
To cut costs MB Architecture used shipping containers to create the boxy, two-storey structure from volumes that were prefabricated off-site and then assembled in place in two days.
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"Simplicity of spatial layout and materials were sought to yield compelling and uncluttered rooms while achieving budget goals," the studio said.
"As such, we used the rectilinear geometry of containers, and their inherent structural strengths to guide room layout and structural requirements."
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The main body of the house comprises four volumes that measure 40 feet long (12 metres) and eight feet (2.4 metres) wide.
The studio stacked two of the units on top of one another and cut away a portion of the base and interior walls cut out to allow for 17-foot-hight (5.2 metre-high) ceilings and open-plan living inside. Tall windows front both ends to allow plenty of natural light.
Bedrooms, meanwhile, are housed in two additional units, including a cantilevered volume bolted on to one of the upper containers and a skinny volume that extends from the lower portion. A walkway attaches between the main house and the latter.
Inside, a wood staircase occupies the entire width of one container to form steps facing towards the backyard patio and pool. The studio describes it as an "amphitheatrical room".
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Wood steps leading down from the residence also form a series of benches that blend with the decking that edges the geometric pool. The small patio is outfitted with white lounge chairs and a round black grill.
All of the interior walls are painted white and paired with whitewashed hardwood floors. The ceilings on the front half of the structure are cut away opening the lower level to the floor above.
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Furnishings include a puffy orange Togo sofa from Ligne Roset, red stools designed by Tolix and a large reed mat made by the Tuareg tribe of North Africa.
MB Architecture is a New York studio with offices in East Hampton and Manhattan founded in 1996.
Lead architect: Maziar Behrooz Associate architect: Bruce Engel Intern: Eudine Blancardi Builder/general contractor: Charles Gallanti Inc Structural engineer: Keith Ewing Landscape design: MB Architecture
A vintage car parked outside this house in Austin designed by Texas firm Mark Odom Studio adds to its mid-century modern aesthetic.
Slatted screens, pale masonry walls and a pebbled roof are among the features typical to 1950s homes that are included in the project, called Inglewood Residence.
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"The homeowner has a deep appreciation for mid-century architecture and expressed wanting all the elements you would find in a quintessential mid-century design home," said studio founder Mark Odom.
The resident, who was the civil engineer on the project, is also a fan of the vintage El Camino in the iconic aqua colour, whose colour informed the hue of the front door. Photographs show a vintage Thunderbird parked in the covered garage to showcase this.
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Measuring 2,400 square feet (223 square metres), the residence is built to preserve existing trees growing on the site. The garage is placed in front of a small entrance yard where one of the trees grows, while the others are located in the back garden.
Mark Odom Studio placed a long, slender volume on one side of the plot to make way for these outdoor areas. The open-plan lounge, kitchen and dining room is arranged to protrude from this form and sit in between the front and rear yards.
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A third courtyard is placed next to the kitchen, with sliding glass doors allowing for plenty of natural light.
"The intended experience is to feel continuously connected with nature while moving through the house," said Odom.
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"The design inspiration was based on the 'courtyard house', centred around the existing trees as well as making sure natural light spilled into all interior spaces," he added.
Pale masonry blocks on the exterior continue inside forming a spine that runs lengthways down the residence.
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Inglewood Residence is mainly on one level, apart from a small mezzanine loft. Slight level changes, however, are used to differentiate between areas.
Three steps, for example, lead from the entrance hallway up to the main living area. Another set of steps lead from the kitchen to down to two bedrooms placed towards the front of the house.
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A master suite and a utility room are set on a slightly higher level towards the rear of the house.
Covering the floor is terrazzo made from 1,800 pounds (816 kilograms) of coloured glass the team "hand spread" as the concrete foundation was laid. Interior walls are then all painted white, aside from the exposed brick.
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Details are offered by touches of wood like the kitchen cabinetry and treads of the staircase, which peep through the slatted white balustrade and wall that separates the stair from the kitchen.
In the lounge, wooden frames for lightweight, white curtains run below clerestory windows. Other nods to the mid-century design in this room include the brickwork fireplace and the furnishings, like the curved sofa.
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The team also used wooden bookshelves sourced from the classroom of the client's father, who used to be a school teacher.
Architect: Mark Odom Studio Structural: PCW Construction, Inc. Civil: Thrower Design, Neslie Cook (owner) Builder: Doug Cameron, Eco Safe Spaces Landscape: Mark Odom Studio Eco Safe Spaces Interiors: Mark Odom Studio Interior furnishing: Ruby Cloutier
New York designer Karim Rashid has won this year's American Prize for Design, which is regarded as "the highest and most prestigious design award in the United States".
Rashid, whose best-known works include the Snoop and Woopy chair and the Bobble water flask, describes himself as a "design pervert, cultural shaper, poet of plastic, digipop rockstar".
"Design is my lifelong hobby," Rashid said. "Design is something that can be so emotional, so experiential, so romantic, so poetic, and so human and yet constantly moves us forward."
He intends to champions "democratic design", a term he uses to describe making good design available for all, through projects focused on unnoticed or overlooked items.
The Chicago Athenaeum's president Christian Narkiewicz-Laine commended Rashid for his "dizzying array of projects going all over the globe". "What stands out is that the man is driven. Scratch that. Hyper-driven," Narkiewicz-Laine added.
"Entering the mad design world of Rashid is like being trapped inside a gigantic, rotating kaleidoscope, where the turning and twisting of bits of coloured materials between two flat plates against two plane mirrors produce an endless variety of crazed patterns and dizzying possibilities," he said.
Born in Egypt in 1960, Rashid received a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
After graduating in 1982, he moved to Italy to study at the Rodolfo Bonetto Studio in Milan. He worked under influential designers Ettore Sottsass, Rodolfo Benetto and the late Alessandro Mendini, who he counted as a mentor.
Described as "the highest and most prestigious design award in the United States", the American Prize for Design is awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum in conjunction with the Good Design Awards.
Each year, candidates are nominated by design practitioners, press, educators and its advisory board, which includes architects and designs like Adrian Smith, John Marx, James von Klemperer, Santiago Calatrava and Serqei Tchoban.
Previous winners of the American Prize for Design include British architect Norman Foster and Italian Ferrari designer Flavio Manzoni.
US architecture studio Hannah has used 3D-printed concrete stilts to elevate this tiny off-grid cabin in Upstate New York, which has walls made from infested ash wood.
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Ashen Cabin is intended as a small-scale study of more sustainable construction that combines lumbar destroyed by an invasive beetle with digital fabrication techniques, such as 3D printing.
"From the ground up, digital design and fabrication technologies are intrinsic to the making of this architectural prototype, facilitating fundamentally new material methods, tectonic articulations, forms of construction, and architectural design languages," Hannah said.
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The small house is clad with wavy wood panels and windows framed with black plywood. Concrete is used to form a tall concrete chimney and chunky legs that protrude from the structure.
Hannah used 3D printing system to stacks the layers of concrete and form the structure's angular base and bulky extrusions.
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All of the concrete shapes, including the prismatic legs, curving chimney and fireplace, textured flooring and furniture objects, feature a linear pattern marked by jagged edges.
"The project aims to reveal 3D printing's idiosyncratic tectonic language by exploring how the layering of concrete, the relentless 3D deposition of extruded lines of material, and the act of corbelling can suggest new strategies for building," it added.
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The studio, which is led by co-principals Sasa Zivkovic and Leslie Lok, worked with a group of students at Cornell University to realise the residence that uses wood infested by the Emerald Ash Borer beetle.
Typically infested ash trees, destroyed by the insects, aren't used for construction because of their difficult shapes and inability to be processed by sawmills. Instead, they are left to decompose or burn, releasing harmful carbon dioxide into the air.
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"Infested ash trees often either decompose or are burned for energy," Zivkovic said.
"Unfortunately, both scenarios release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and so the advantage to using compromised ash for construction is that is that it both binds the carbon to the earth and offsets the harvesting of more commonly used wood species."
To cut the irregular shaped logs into curving boards that vary in thickness the team used a robotic arm and band saw attachment. The cut panels define the windows on the exterior and are also used to form architectural features inside, such as shelving and surfaces.
"The curvature of the wood is strategically deployed to highlight moments of architectural importance such as windows, entrances, roofs, canopies, or provide additional programmatic opportunities such as integrated shelving, desk space, or storage," the studio said.
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Over time the wood boards will naturally grey and the siding will blend with the colour of the 3D printed concrete used throughout the house.
The team's 3D printing system eliminated the need for a concrete mould, reducing the amount of the material used and its carbon dioxide footprint.
"By using 3D printing, we eliminate the use of wasteful formwork and can deposit concrete smartly and only where structurally necessary, reducing its use considerably while also maintaining a building's integrity," Lok said.
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Each of the four windows is outlined with a custom-built frame of marine-grade plywood painted black to stand out against the pale siding. They are each oriented to face the wooded landscape.
The cabin has no power or running water. Instead, a small camping sink made with the coiling concrete provides water. Foam insulation and the wood burning fireplace are used to regulate the temperature of the off-grid residence.
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Inside, walls are covered with the same timber that is used on the outside and the concrete floors have interlocking design.
The 3D printed material is also used to form a seating platform that doubles as storage. A bench-like surface made with the black plywood used on the window frames extends from the seat to form a bed.
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Hannah was founded in 2014 by Alexander Chmarin, Alexander Graf, Leslie Lok, and Sasa Zivkovic and has its office in Ithaca, New York.
Project team concrete: Christopher Battaglia, Jeremy Bilotti, Elie Boutros, Reuben Chen, Justin Hazelwood, Mitchie Qiao Assembly and documentation team concrete: Alexandre Mecattaf, Ethan Davis, Russell Southard, Dax Simitch Warke, Ramses Gonzales, Wangda Zhu Project team wood fabrication and design: Byungchan Ahn, Alexander Terry Wood studies: Xiaoxue Ma, Alexandre Mecattaf Assembly and documentation team wood: Freddo Daneshvaran, Ramses Gonzalez, Jiaying Wei, Jiayi Xing, Xiaohang Yan, Sarah Elizabeth Bujnowski, Eleanor Jane Krause, Todd Petrie, Isabel Lucia Branas Jarque, Xiaoxue Ma Representation team: Byungchan Ahn, Kun Bi, Brian Havener, Lingzhe Lu Cornell Arnot Teaching and Research Forest: Peter Smallidge
New York studio LTL Architects has designed minimal grey interiors that contrast white neoclassical pillars for the USA's first major museum dedicated to the history of posters.
The museum, called Poster House, is on the ground floor of an existing 10-storey building near Madison Square Park on the border of the New York's Chelsea neighbourhood.
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Spanning 14,500 square feet (1,347 square metres), the museum includes a lobby, gift shop, cafe and exhibition room and a cellar below with offices and other private rooms.
Local studio LTL Architects designed the interiors to riff off original details from the early 20th century like exposed brick walls, barrel vaults and ornate cast-iron columns that are painted white.
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"The design for Poster House seeks to combine the old and the new, the rustic and the refined, the playful and the somewhat serious into a layered but still unified architectural experience," said LTL Architects.
The studio inserted a grey envelope to enclose the exhibition space and culminate in a canopy at the entrance on 23rd Street.
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The 185-foot-long (56-metre-long) insertion divides the museum's slender floor plan – which stretches 200 feet (61 metres) from 23rd Street to 24th Street – into a public passage on one side and galleries opposite.
"The formal galleries are nested within the existing building shell like a ship in a bottle, while the zone in between is activated by a series of collective programs and takes advantage of the qualities of the extant architecture," the studio said.
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Original architectural details feature in the passageway and communal areas and contrast with the grey volume.
"The resulting design is therefore conceived as a negotiation between two contrasting but complementary types of space: a more enclosed gallery volume and a more open and active public promenade," LTL Architects added.
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Rounding out the design are floors covered in either concrete or wood, timber benches and desks, and black railings.
Poster House is the first major museum in the US dedicated to the global history of posters. It is currently closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, and so is instead showcasing Covid-19 posters across the city digitally on LinkNYC Wi-Fi service panels.
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Before closing in March, along with many of the city's museums, Poster House exhibited posters from the 2017 Women's March, hand-painted movie posters from Ghana and art nouveau works by Czech artist Alphonse Mucha.
Future poster exhibitions include the 1964 Olympic Games in Japan, Austrian designer Julius Klinger from the Vienna Secession and ones with the International Typographic Style, also known as Swiss Style.
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There is also a poster museum in Aarhus, Denmark called the Danish Poster Museum, whose interiors were designed by local architecture firm C F Møller, as well as the Czech Poster Museum in Prague and Poster Museum Warsaw.
Project team: Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, David J. Lewis; Anna Knoell, Michael Schissel, Jillian Blakey, Sonia Flamberg, Jenny Hong, Eli Back Structural engineer: Silman Mechanical engineer: Thomas Polise Consulting Engineer PC Lighting design: Lumen Architecture Code consultant: J Callahan Consulting Inc Graphic designer: Pentagram Interactive designer: Conduit Projects Incsp
Waves of corrugated steel and wood accents wrap around the Marginal Housing 3.0 block by Merge Architects located alongside Boston's harbour.
The housing complex contains seven units, two duplexes facing the street, two flats in the middle and three townhouses at the rear of the plot.
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Merge Architects used materials and geometric shapes that were informed by its site located next to the harbour's shipyard.
"The shape, texture, and materials of Marginal Housing 3.0 poetically mirror the disparate elements of the site: the steel of the industrial shipyard structures to the west, the texture of the clapboard on east Boston's triple deckers, and the curvatures found in the barges and sailboats that step away into the Harbor," said the studio.
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The residential building's facades are clad with a dark bronze-coloured corrugated steel. The fluted metal covers the triangular balconies that protrude from the front duplexes and wraps around the curving facade located on the building's east side.
Slabs of cedar form a base upon which the steel structure sits. The cedar contrasts against the dark siding to also frame the window surrounds, doorways and decks.
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All seven units are contained within the same building. The front part of the block comprises the two duplexes, the flats each occupy a floor in the middle and the three townhouses take up the rear of the building.
Each of the residential units has an exterior space that provides views of the nearby water and boatyard. This is achieved in the middle units with the implementation of the curved facade that is designed to broaden the building's shape towards its back.
The two duplexes are oriented at slight angles from one another to create privacy on their porches, while the townhouses open up to a landscaped backyard that encircles the property.
Entrances to the individual townhouses are located on the ground floor along with a large parking garage, storage area and staircases to the duplex and apartments.
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Marginal Housing 3.0 was completed in late 2019. The team were unable to take photographs of the interiors because of limited access due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Where the exterior walls are convex the corresponding interior walls are concave creating a relationship between the two sides. The open-plan residences use the rounded walls to form small living niches. Simple materials including oak wood floors feature throughout the spaces.
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The building is located on a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood plain that backs up to waterfront, as it is an area the city believes could be affected by rising sea levels.
Californian firm Ryan Leidner Architecture has used bright white paint and lush greenery to refresh a mid-century modern Eichler home in Silicon Valley that was completed in the 1960s.
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The Twin Gable House in Sunnyvale, California was constructed in 1962 by the design duo A Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons for post-war real estate developer Joseph Eichler. It is one of over 10,000 modernist subdivisions that Eichler developed following the second world war.
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Originally called Plan OJ-1605, the property has been remodelled several times since it was first built. For this renovation, Ryan Leidner Architecture updated the 2,200-square-foot (204.3-square-metre) space with white interiors and an open floor plan for a family of four.
"A primary goal of the renovation was to peel back the many layers of remodels that had occurred over the previous decades," the studio said.
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The low-lying house is now named after its two pitched roofs that are painted a bright white. They contrast the red cedar strips that were added to replace the original grooved plywood siding on the facade, which also features a carport accented by glazed walls.
Large sliding glass doors and windows face into a lush garden landscaped by Stephens Design Studio, which includes the existing courtyard and a new swimming pool.
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The courtyard is one of a series of existing architectural elements the team preserved during the project, along with the post and beam structure that spans the ceilings.
Inside, the studio removed several walls to adjust the flow of the layout and create an open-plan living area. Plaster walls were smoothed and repainted a bright white, along with the wood beams and frames that span the ceiling.
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Square porcelain tiles cover the flooring throughout the house and continue onto the outdoor spaces.
Ryan Leidner Architecture removed dated furnishings such as the shag carpets and old cabinetry for the interior decor. In the kitchen, Carrara marble counters and backsplash are now paired with white oak accents used to detail the cabinetry.
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Furnishings include a set of wood Eames lounge chairs in the living room and a bedroom side table designed by Eero Saarinen.
Ryan Leidner Architecture is a San Francisco studio, it recently completed the renovation of a 19th-century residence house in the city's Mission district.
Long Island seaside town Amagansett has become a hotspot for New Yorker’s holiday homes. We’ve rounded up six retreats for welcoming warmer days.
A two-hour drive from New York City, Amagansett is on the eastern end of Long Island in the Hamptons area.
While not as famous as nearby Montauk, it is home to a number of striking houses that have sprung up in recent years. Many feature a combination of contemporary and traditional details like expansive glass walls, gable roofs and wood cladding.
This white house is built on a sandy plot close to the ocean and comprises the renovation of a 1970s cottage.
A recent renovation designed by New York studio 1100 Architect – which also has an office in Frankfurt, Germany – opened up the interiors, added more windows and created a new deck and swimming pool.
MB Architecture designed another house in Amagansett with concrete and timber to "accommodate the owner's wish for a maintenance-free house with longevity".
The residence is perpendicular to the street to minimise its visual impact, for it is on one of the town's The Lane – a set of walkable streets perpendicular to Main Street.
Boston firm Flavin Architects has built a three-storey addition for a house in Massachusetts to offer space for a couple to write, garden and repair antique scooters.
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Modern Lantern Studio is a free-standing volume nestled into a hilly garden, at the site of an existing Dutch Colonial Revival home in the town of Wellesley.
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Flavin Architects designed the addition for a couple who wanted a place to unwind and get creative.
"The building is conceived as a creative sanctuary from the busy day-to-day life of the home," said the studio.
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"Our client asked for a garden structure for their hobbies of antique Vespa repair, writing and rooftop gardening," Flavin Architects added. "They also wished for a covered outdoor veranda."
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The rectangular volume comprises a concrete base clad in stucco, with an exposed steel frame supporting the upper two floors.
Slender mahogany boards that are intended to allow for privacy and natural ventilation cover other walls. At nighttime, the building glows up when the lights are on inside, giving it the name Modern Lantern Studio.
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"The appearance of the building changes throughout the day; the wood screens are backlit in the morning sun and front-lit in the afternoon with dappled light filtered through the adjacent tree canopies," said Flavin Architects.
A two-car garage and equipment room are located on the lowest level of Modern Lantern Studio built within the sloping site, along with a 670-square-foot (62-square-metre) workshop for repairing vintage Vespa scooters.
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Above is an outdoor living room, which is enclosed by the slatted walls and accessible via steps that lead from the house's back garden.
The writer's studio is also located on this level and is the only air-conditioned area in the project. It features a floor-to-ceiling glass wall and access to a small terrace.
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Spanning the top is a 590-square-foot (55-square-metre) roof deck. It is furnished with an outdoor dining table and surrounded by a vegetable garden.
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The area is intended to take cues from the farm-to-table restaurant concept as the couple can eat the food that grows there.
The raised elevation of the garden is also key because it is protected away from deer and squirrels that are prevalent to the region.
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Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the United States. Local firm Maryann Thompson Architects has also added a pool house and underground sauna to a property on Martha's Vineyard – an island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Photography is by Peter Vanderwarker unless stated otherwise (sq Nat Rea).
Project credits:
Project team: Colin Flavin, Howard Raley General contractor: Brookes + Hill Custom Builders Landscape architect: Wagner Hodgson
