Be Open think tank

Belgian studios Wil-Ma and Wastiau have collaborated on the design of Office Nete, a small office building on stilts in rural Belgium. Aimed to house the office of a window manufacturer, the building is located near the Grote Nete river within a protected a natural landscape, which explains why the team suggested elevating the structure. On the one hand, stilts help to protect the office building from flooding, while on the other hand, it softens its presence in the surroundings, endowing it with a lighter appearance. The stilts are angled to reference the irregularity of the surrounding trees, which makes the building blend with the natural surroundings. More breathtaking buildings on stilts at blog.beopenfuture.com

The chairs of the Planetaria collection by Lara Bohinc, furniture and jewelry designer based in the UK, are created as a result of her fascination by cosmic forms and wish to manipulate these shapes into furniture design. The distinctive Saturn chair comprises an undulating seat formed by semi-sphere metal constructions holding soft spheres of deep upholstery, with a semi-ring above that provides both back and arm rest and is supported by the metalwork so delicate it seems to be levitating. The Apollo chair creates its own graceful simplicity, by presenting its fine metal loops outwards at each side, rather than to the front. More bespoke chair designs in our blog.beopenfuture.com

Plateau Lamp designed by French product designer Ferreol Babin for the design brand Daniel is not a common table lamp but a poetic piece. Inspired by nature, it is exposed to minimalist geometric aesthetics. The asymmetrical thin board of solid ash wood emits a soothing white light using LED technology. Its organic shapes blend harmoniously with a pillar-like base of steel. Technology seems to fade away from the poetic product; it irradiates a warm and otherworldly aura instead, which allows Plateau to fit both contemporary and classic interiors. ferreolbabin.fr

A laser-cut façade of 2mm thin aluminum makes the Shinjuku Miyabi Residence hotel by Himematsu Architecture stand out from the surrounding streetscape of one of Tokyo’s central areas. Specially designed for tourists outside of Japan expected to come visiting for the Olympics 2020, the hotel is aimed to meet them with Japanese culture. The exterior wall features a traditional Japanese pattern of hemp leaves used for newborn baby clothes as a wish for the newly born hotel’s growth and development. The façade is especially spectacular at night, lighting set between the building’s exterior wall and the aluminum surface highlights its pattern from the back. More outstanding façades in our blog.beopenfuture.com

Phaedrus Studio with offices in Toronto and New York designed the Tesseract House, a single-family home in Toronto, which as its name suggests, brings quirky modular geometric beauty in the residential street. The bold steel volumes and a series of playful cedar-clad apertures define internal and external space, expanding to the outside, then contracting and then expanding to a single space. The odd windows revealing the interior space create an intriguing sense of depth, while the interiors themselves are kept minimal-looking to enhance the clear lines directing the floorplan from room to room. www.phaedrus.studio

#BeOpenARCH New York collective Design Base 8 developed a tall three-storey cabin for an avid outdoorsman and hobby arborist in a remote place of Canada's Cape Breton. The team utilized the area’s existing building typologies including the archetypal gable, which is commonly used to shed snow and rainwater, as well as locally sourced wood board cladding. Located among the rugged landscape of Rabbit Snare Gorge, the cabin is a gently adapted gabled tower offering ample programming within a minimal footprint, which minimizes ecological disruption. Being exposed to Atlantic rainstorms, corrosive salt-spray and strong southeasterly winds, it is designed to combat these major lateral loads and uplift via redundant sheathing. More houses with a gabled roof reimagined in our blog.beopenfuture.com

Botswana born architect Beullah Serema of Atelier Noua, Japan designed a museum and exhibition space in the restored ruins of an outstanding burnt brick church within perimeters of the former capital of the Bangwato tribe. The design of the Old Palapye Museum considered keeping the ruins in their original state, therefore the structural frame, height, form and windows of the old church were reconstructed by referring to its old photos with moderns materials, such as steel and glass. With Corten steel representing the hue of the original burnt brick, the harmonious combination of materials and styles highlights the contrast between old and new. The project is a winner of the A’ Design Award 2019. Via competition.adesignaward.com

The aluminum Bone Chair by Amsterdam based Joris Laarman Lab was created using the algorithm which was developed by the German engineer Professor Lothar Harzheim, together with the International Development Centre Adam Opel GmbH, which mimics the ability of bones to take away material where it is not needed, in order to optimize car parts. The computer-generated form had to be refined for the specifications of aluminum, which resulted in a much more slender shape. If the chair was assembled from cast components, it would have visible welding stains, so to cast the piece in one go the team chose to use complex molds assembled from 3D printed ceramic parts. More state-of-art aluminum furniture in our blog.beopenfuture.com

Rundzwei Architekten designed Cork Screw House, a single-family home in Berlin, which has a façade and a roof clad with waste cork from a wine-bottling company. Internally, the building encompasses several bright split-level floors made from timber, which can be accessed through a spiralling staircase atrium at its centre. A gable skylight above the staircase lets the natural daylight into the building. Constructed in timber, the complete structure is clad with rectangular-shaped panels of cork creating beautifully uniform façade and providing with a high acoustic performance and outstanding insulation values. With an innovative thermally efficient heat system and integrated solar panels on the roof, this material contributes significantly to the energy efficiency and sustainability of the building, making it almost autonomous. More buildings clad with cork in our blog.beopenfuture.com

Reading between the lines by the Belgian duo Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, a collaboration between architects Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh, is a construction in the rural landscape based on design of the local church, which is built on a fundament of armed concrete of 30 tons of steel and 2000 columns. Horizontal plates make the church either appear as a massive building or dissolve — partly or completely — into the landscape, depending on the perspective of the viewer. Thus the concept of the traditional church is transformed into a transparent object of art, architectural object – into an artistic one. gijsvanvaerenbergh.com