Museo Casa de la Memoria

Via Dezeen

October 23rd, 2010

A collective of Colombian architects have designed a memorial museum for Medellín, Colombia, to commemorate victims of conflict.

Architects on the project include Juan David Botero, Maria Fernanda Vasco, Carla Cristina Gil, Jorge Adrian Gaviria, Catalina Jaramillo, Daniel Santiago Herrera, Elías José Gomez, Víctor Hugo Rodriguez, Alejandro Naranjo and Oscar Santana.

Separated into three floors, the building’s main exhibition spaces will be located at ground level, with archives on the first floor and an auditorium, cafe, workshop spaces and offices in the basement.

The building will be supported internally by portico and concrete slabs, with an outer metallic skeleton supporting the facades and roof.

The roof lights will allow indirect natural light to enter the top-level archive space.

The museum will form part of a larger park commissioned to commemorate the country’s 200th year of independence.

Centred on the Santa Elena Stream around which the city developed, new leisure facilities will include an open theatre and an interactive cascade of water.

The scheme has been commissioned by EDU, the Urban Development Corporation of Medellin.

Construction of the museum is due to start next year.
The following text is from EDU:

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In commemoration of Colombia’s 200 years of independence, rises a proposal to develop an urban project with aims to generate a social and environmental impact in a city’s sector which through the years has been deteriorating by housing invasion and the constant misuse of natural resources.

The project makes part of a master plan called Central-PUI, and it is located in Boston’s neighbourhood, in the 10th district of Medellín, Colombia; between the 39th and 36th Carrera, and the 54th and 51st street.

The design criteria for this project responds to the need to restore a historical and natural element such as the Santa Elena Stream, an important water source for the collective memory of the inhabitants of the city.

Along this stream the first settlements where originated, which later led to the development of the city as known today.

This element intends to be the main and guiding axis of the project by the recovery of its historical meaning.

The Project intervention develops 21,620 m2 of new public space, through which it seeks a physical and environmental recovery of the Santa Elena Stream.

As said before, this project will trigger the environmental and spatial recovery of the stream, with the streams borders as the structure and primary target for public space generation.

This will be done by a considerable amount of native flora planting, landscape design, strengthening of the sector as a new area of recreation with leisure facilities, including an open theatre with natural grass and an interactive digital display of water.

Within this proposal, a cultural facility of 3,619 m2 called “Museo Casa de la Memoria” is included, which seeks to assign a special place for the remembrance of victims of the violent conflict in Colombia and all around the world.

Promoted in its enclosures are spaces and exhibits to recreate historical events, with the aim of transforming violent acts into social learning.

The museum is another good excuse to find a place in the city where people meet to review our history and be able to assimilate the transition from the darkness of the death that swept our streets for decades, into the light of hope of living in a city less violent and with more public spaces for social interaction.

Starting from this premise, the building is like a tunnel, looking torevive a descending journey, pretending with this, to recreate sensations of the so called transition from darkness to light, supported by itinerant or permanent educational scripts, which will tell stories of our conflict that has been present for over 40 years.

The building’s program is divided into three levels. The intermediate level is the museum’s principal access, where we can find the ticket office and two large exposition rooms. The exposition rooms can be divided depending the museum’s need of space for each exhibit.

A higher level houses the Documentation Centre, an adequate space for files and documentation to be consulted by the community.

The building will use two different structural methods. Porticos and concrete slabs will hold the inside program, meanwhile a metallic skeleton structure will surround and sustain the building facades and inside roofing.

And finally at a lower level it is establish de following: an educational workshops, an auditorium for 270 people, administrative offices, a children’s gallery, the 3rd Gallery or exit, the Reflection Chamber , the restaurant, a small shop and technical areas.

This last structure is like a big folded double skin, which will act as an air chamber for thermal control, adequate for natural ventilation and for hot air evacuation.

It will also have deep bays available to prevent direct incidence of sunrays and skylights designed with the same geometry as of the building for an excellent and efficient indirect natural lighting.

The park is in its first phase of construction with work on the museum beginning in early January 2011.

8 house

 Via Dezeen

October 22nd, 2010

Danish architects BIG have completed their 8 House residential project with a figure-of-eight plan in Copenhagen.

The building features a continuous cycle path and pedestrian walkway, winding up to the tenth floor and back down to ground level, and providing access to all residences.

The structure wraps around two courtyards connected by a tunnel through the central cross, which houses communal facilities.

Its height is lower on the south-west corner and higher at the north-east side to make best use of daylight.

See our earlier story about the project’s green roofs here.

See all our stories about BIG »

Photographs are by Jens Lind unless stated otherwise.

The text that follows is from the architects:

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BIG COMPLETES ITS TRILOGY OF HOUSING WITH THE 8 HOUSE IN COPENHAGEN
Celebrating its third project with the same development team in the maturing neighborhood of Orestad, the construction of the 61,000 m2 8 House has come to an end, allowing people to bike all the way from the street up to its 10th level penthouses alongside terraced gardens where the first residents have already moved in.

Above photograph is by Ty Stange
The bowtie-shaped 61,000 m2 mixed-use building of three different types of residential housing and 10,000 m2 of retail and offices comprises Denmark’s largest private development ever undertaken.

Above photograph is by Ty Stange
Commissioned by St. Frederikslund and Per Hopfner in 2006, the 8 House sits on the outer edge of the city as the southern most outpost of Orestad.

Above photograph is by Ty Stange
Rather than a traditional block, the 8 House stacks all ingredients of a lively urban neighborhood into horizontal layers of typologies connected by a continuous promenade and cycling path up to the 10th floor creating a three-dimensional urban neighborhood where suburban life merges with the energy of a big city, where business and housing co-exist.

Above photograph is by Ty Stange
“We have now completed three remarkable buildings in Orestad, the VM Houses, The Mountain and finally the 8 House – which is the sole result of a good and constructive collaboration with talented young architects who had a good understanding for the economical aspects,” Per Hopfner, Hopfner Partners

Above photograph is by Ty Stange
The 8 House creates two intimate interior courtyards, separated by the centre of the cross which houses 500 m2 of communal facilities available for all residents.

Above photograph is by Ty Stange
At the very same spot, the building is penetrated by a 9 meter wide passage that allows people to easily move from the park area on its western edge to the water filled canals to the east. Instead of dividing the different functions of the building – for both habitation and trade – into separate blocks, the various functions have been spread out horizontally.

Above photograph is by Ty Stange
“The apartments are placed at the top while the commercial programme unfolds at the base of the building.

Above photograph is by Ty Stange
As a result, the different horizontal layers have achieved a quality of their own: the apartments benefit from the view, sunlight and fresh air, while the office leases merge with life on the street.

This is emphasized by the shape of 8 House which is literally hoisted up in the Northeast corner and pushed down at the Southwest corner, allowing light and air to enter the southern courtyard,” Thomas Christoffersen, Partner in Charge, 8 House, BIG

A continuous public path stretches from street level to the penthouses and allows people to bike all the way from the ground floor to the top, moving alongside townhouses with gardens, winding through an urban perimeter block.

Two sloping green roofs totaling 1,700 m2 are strategically placed to reduce the urban heat island effect as well as providing the visual identity to the project and tying it back to the adjacent farmlands towards the south.

“8 House is a three-dimensional neighborhood rather than an architectural object.

An alley of 150 rowhouses stretches through the entire block and twists all the way from street level to the top and down again.

Where social life, the spontaneous encounter and neighbor interaction traditionally is restricted to the ground level, the 8 House allows it to expand all the way to the top,” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG

The 8 House uses size to its advantage by creating immense differences in height thereby creating a unique sense of community with small gardens and pathways that remind you of the intimacy of an Italian hill town.

With spectacular views towards the Copenhagen Canal and Kalvebod Faelled’s protected open spaces, 8 House provides residences to people in all of life’s stages through its 476 housing units, including apartments of varied sizes, penthouses and townhouses as well as office spaces to the city’s business and trade in one single building.

“8 House is our second realized example of architectural alchemy – the idea that by mixing traditional ingredients, retail, row- houses and apartments in untraditional ways – you create added value if not gold.

The mix allows the individual activities to find their way to the most ideal location within the common framework – the retail facing street, the offices towards northern light and the residences with sun and views to the open spaces.

8 House is a perimeter block that morphs into a knot, twisting and turning to maximize the life quality of its many inhabitants,” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG






PROJECT 8 HOUSE
CLIENT ST. FREDERIKSLUND HOLDING
ARCHITECT BIG-BJARKE INGELS GROUP
COLLABORATION HOPFNER PARTNERS, MOE & BRODSGAARD, KLAR
SIZE 61,000 M2, 476 RESIDENCES
COST EUR 92,000,000
LOCATION COPENHAGEN, DK
STATUS COMPLETED 2010
Partner-In-Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Christoffersen Project Leader: Ole Elkjaer-Larsen, Henrick Poulsen Project Manager: Finn Norkjaer, Henrik Lund
Team: Dennis Rasmussen, Rune Hansen, Agustin Perez Torres, Annette Jensen, Carolien Schippers, Caroline Vogelius Wiener, Claus Tversted, David Duffus, Hans Larsen, Jan Magasanik, Anders Nissen, Christian Alvarez Gomez, Hjalti Gestsson, Johan Cool, James Duggan Schrader, Jakob Lange, Kirstine Ragnhild, Jakob Monefeldt, Jeppe Marling Kiib, Joost Van Nes, Kasia Brzusnian, Kasper Broendum Larsen, Louise Heboell, Maria Sole Bravo, Ole Nannberg, Pablo Labra, Pernille Uglvig Jessen, Peter Rieff, Peter Voigt Albertsen, Peter Larsson, Rasmus Kragh Bjerregaard, Richard Howis, Soeren Lambertsen, Eduardo Perez, Ondrej Tichy, Sara Sosio, Karsten Hammer Hansen, Christer Nesvik, Soeren Peter Kristensen, Lacin Karaoz, Marcello Cova, Luis Felipe González Delgado, Janghee Yoo, SunMing Lee