Notariaat by Atelier Vens Vanbelle

This office building in the Belgian hills by architects Atelier Vens Vanbelle has a brick facade broken by huge windows overlooking the surrounding farmland.

The offices, waiting room and kitchen open out to the views on two sides, turning away from the adjacent street and restaurant.

The building is cantilevered at the back to accommodate staff parking beneath.

Here are some more details from the architects:

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The building site is situated at the end of a small street in the small village of Horebeke in the Flemish Ardennes, next to a restaurant. The view from the site is splendid: the landscape slopes slowly and offers an overview to an untouched agricultural area spread over two kilometers.

This kind of impressive landscapes asks for discrete admiration, just like the design assignment itself.

A notary must be a building that establishes itself in a neutral way and it should be accessible for each type of visitor.

We believe building in a landscape like this asks for the same kind of neutrality.

This was translated in a rough brick volume which is semi-closed to the street side and the restaurant.

The entrance to the building is marked by a white volume made of steel plates.

Walking through this white volume, the visitor enters a corridor looking out over a patio on the right side.

On the left side the corridor bends to the waiting room which opens cone-shaped to the landscape.

The kitchen and the offices open in a similar way to the outside. The peaceful landscape is framed through the windows like colourful paintings in the white interior.

The back of the building cantilevers over the sloping terrain. The staff can park under the building and the cars form no visual obstruction from within the building.

location: Horebeke, Belgium
construction: 2009
architect: atelier vens vanbelle

House with Tiny Pool by NRM-Architects Office

Japanese architect Shunichiro Ninomiy of NRM-Architects Office has used an atrium and small pool of water to admit light indirectly to the ground floor of this east-facing home in Osaka, Japan.

Called House With Tiny Pool, the two-storey wooden structure is enclosed with a high-walled courtyard preventing direct glare into the ground floor.

Sunlight enters through large windows on the first floor, where a white wall bounces it down through the atrium to the lower storey.

Rooms on the second floor are set back from this facade to prevent direct sunlight.

The small pool of water is visible from all rooms in the house.

All photographs are by Eiji Tomita.

Here’s some more from the architect:

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House with Tiny pool
Ensure that lighting and ventilation while maintaining privacy, “courtyard” is the configuration space, this plan is not a common tactic that the south side lighting in order to get a light, light work actively east Mashita.

Space constraints in the various aspects and large glass atrium at the south side lighting because sunlight enters the room too, but problems arise due to heat and light it, light and east, reflecting the use of the courtyard wall I get a light in the light, and efforts to solve the problems of the south side lighting.

kH:3
Architects : Shunichiro Ninomiya + Tomoko Morodome / NRM-Architects Office
Location : Osaka,Japan

Principal use : personal house
Structure : wood structure, 2stories

Site area : 244.23sqm Building area : 78.15sqm
Total floor area : 129.08sqm

Project completion : 2009
Photograph : Eiji Tomita

Found by Stuart Haygarth at Haunch of Venison

This chandelier made of spectacle frames (above) is on show at the Haunch of Venison gallery in London as part of an exhibition of work by London designer Stuart Haygarth.

Called Found, the show features lighting made of objects Haygarth has collected through beachcombing, visits to markets and car boot sales.

New pieces include a lamp stand made of toothpaste-tube caps (above), and lamps where the base is filled with porcelain figurines.

The exhibition continues until 30 January.

All images courtesy Haunch of Venison, copyright Stuart Haygarth.

Here’s some more information from the gallery:

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In his first exhibition at Haunch of Venison London, British artist and designer Stuart Haygarth examines his ongoing relationship with abandoned objects and his fascination with taxonomy through a series of new furniture works, lamps and chandeliers. Finding beauty in everyday, discarded items, the artist’s work challenges perceived notions of the precious and beautiful.

Haygarth has spent many years gathering seemingly insignificant, discarded items such as ceramic figurines, spectacles, glassware and plastic objects whilst beachcombing, cycling and on excursions to markets and car boot sales. These are then sorted and graded, methodically stored by colour, material and subject. Often inspiring the final work through their form, previous use, tactile qualities and their relationship to light, the found materials are then painstakingly compiled to create lamps and furniture, giving otherwise banal and overlooked objects a new significance.

Haygarth sees his years of collecting and studying our unwanted items as an opportunity to investigate our social behaviour and habits. Haygarth has been gathering smashed car wing mirrors from narrow roads and ‘hot spots’ in London, such as the Rotherhithe tunnel, using them to create several new objects including a revolving mirror-ball with 350 smashed wing mirrors attached to a mirrored sphere, and a series of wing-mirror shaped tables complete with smashed glass surfaces. Haygarth is struck by the complex emotions and stories evoked by these shattered mirrors and the fact that modern society moves at such a fast pace, courting risk.

Haygarth has also continued to explore his famed fascination with spectacles, creating a series of urchin lights for the exhibition; shaggy cascades of frame parts lit from within, and an optical chandelier made from tinted lenses. Hours and weeks are spent measuring and configuring the layout of the assembled quantities until they are ready to be fixed to a central platform or base, creating a unified visual work of art.

°XXXLamp by Bart Lens

Belgian designer Bart Lens has designed a ceiling lamp for eden design which, at four metres wide, they claim is the largest lamp in production.

The °XXXLamp measures 4m x 160m and is inspired by a Chinese lantern.

Here’s some info from eden design:

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°XXXL(amp)

Perhaps symptomatic of an architect’s mindset, the lamps and objects are becoming increasingly ‘space defining’. The XXL-amp is essentially a flattened dome, inspired by the shape of a Chinese lantern. The twelve-segment construction makes the connection with the lantern, but a pumpkin is perhaps the first association that comes to mind, while the suspension system recalls an upside-down hot-air balloon.

If the ceiling is high, but not overly high, then the lamp can be hung at about 1.30m. As befits any impressive space, you’ll want to enter with a slight bow. Once seated at the dining or conference table, you’ll still retain a sense of the surroundings beyond the boundary. Hanging a half or a quarter XXL in a mirrored room creates an impression of spacious rooms full of giant lanterns.

°XXXlamp

3x White lamp (option: 0-10V dimmable/ DALI controllable)
Option: RGB powerled, with remote controller (option: DMX controllable)
Dimensions: 400cm diam x 160cm Height

Neolione by Boadesign Studio

Czech designers Boadesign Studio have created a collection of chandeliers made of curved borosilicate glass tubes.

Called Neolione, the collection includes three different designs.

The each light features glass arms that have been bent into angular shapes, curved upwards or looped back on themselves.

See also: sculptural CFL bulbs by Hulger (November 2007)

Here’s some information from the designers:

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Neoline is a collection of chandeliers designed especially for hotel and restaurant interiors, spaces typically large enough to allow the unconventional design of these chandeliers to excel.

The first idea for the collection was born in 2006 when the first sketches and visualizations of this collection came into existence.

Since then, development of the collection began with the right technologies to facilitate its creation being investigated.

The final shape and size of the lights were influenced and determined by technologies available.

The design of the collection bears fluid lines, reminescent of classic crystal chandeliers which Neoline can easily replace with their unconventional minimalism and simplicity.

Material: borosilicate glass, rust- resistant steel.