The Square Mag

//August 2009

//Architecture

Kubler House – by Chilean architects 57 Studio – stands on a five thousand square meter site in northern Santiago, Chile, surrounded by golf courses and overlooked by the Andes mountains.

The project incorporates the dramatic landscape into daily household life, following the client’s desire to spend as much time as possible outside throughout the year. With this in mind the garden blends into the parkland on the northern side, and clear views towards the rugged mountain range in the east can be had from the first floor rooms and terraces.

All the interior spaces are organised around an eight-meter square central patio that exposes the underlying terrain, incorporating it into the interior of the house. This patio opens on its north face to project the view towards the garden, through a porch delimited by the ceiling slab. A water mirror runs across a third of its surface reinforcing this perspective.

In many places the roof extends outwards in overhanging eaves to protect the tall windows from the sun and to cover the terraces. These architectonic elements radicalize the opening of the interior spaces, deepening their presence from the outside.

The house incorporates a vast porch with barbecue area and swimming pool that confirms it is, in fact – as well as being an example of strikingly modern architecture – a luxurious retreat.

Authors: Maurizio Angelini / Benjamín Oportot
Collaborators: Felipe Zamora / Carla Uribe
Project: 2006 - 2007
Construction: 2007 - 2008
Location: Las Brisas de Chicureo, Colina, Chile.
Structural Engineer: Claudio Hinojosa
Construction: CYBCO
Materials: Concrete / Steel / Stone

//August 2009

//The Cut

From the shores of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland comes this stealth like 47’7” superyacht designed by Code X. Reminiscent of the viciously beautiful Bond-villain-meets-stealth-bomber boats from Wally, its sharp, angular features are one of very few designs in the uber-luxe market that can truly be called modern.

Powered by twin limor F1 engines delivering 710hp each, it’ll propel you along the water at a vertebre crushing 80 knots (92mph) that’d get you from Monaco to Cannes in about 20 minutes. But before your environmental conscience crashes the party, wait… Code X have also built in a solar powered electric drive that’ll motor you around the harbour at a leisurely, and virtually silent, 9 knots.

It also has touchscreen control and a virtual anchor system that uses the electric motors and GPS tracking to keep the boat stationary no matter what the wind or tides are doing. We’ll have two please.

//August 2009

//Interiors

EASY EDGES SIDE CHAIR 1972 (LEFT)
By Frank O. Gehry
Part of the Wiggle chair range, the side chair was originally created in the early 1970s and is among Gehry’s most renowned designs. Despite its simplistic style, the numerous layers of corrugated cardboard have been meticulously stacked to create a solid, muscular form.
£492
TWENTYTWENTYONE.COM

RAR ROCKER (RIGHT)
By Charles & Ray Eames
Often described as the most significant furniture design of the 20th century, the 1948 plastic rocking chair is back in production and having something of a renaissance. Fun and practical is not often two words you hear associated with each other but, in the case of the ‘RAR’, both descriptions are true. The design is available in a variety of colours. £365
DESIGNSHOPUK.COM

//August 2009

//Architecture

For an international city, London has a pitiful lack of good modern architecture and almost nothing by foreign architects. If a tourist asked you for some recommendations on recently built, modern buildings that are worth visiting you would be pushed to name any. Part of the reason for this is our fear of modern architecture. However it is the planning system that must take much of the blame. Planning officers are under trained, understaffed and dealing with a set of planning regulations that are far too restrictive. The system encourages mediocrity and discourages the exceptional. This has resulted in our precious countryside littered with cheap Lego box housing while in the city most new housing is a Victorian or Georgian pastiche. Future generations will wonder what inspired such a crises in self-confidence – how many of today’s buildings will be listed and protected for future generations to enjoy? I suspect very few.

Japan on the other hand is a country brimming with architectural confidence. Its contemporary architecture is peculiar, yet totally practical and livable. Housing is often unique and inventive, incorporating innovative materials, space and light in original ways. It is a country that has a building industry with a care for craft, a wish to innovate and a tradition of co-operation. Apart from visiting Japan, the best way to experience this new architecture is to visit the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. For the next couple of months you can wander through a pavilion designed by Sanaa, Japanese architects who exemplify the best of contemporary Japanese architecture. As one approaches the Serpentine Gallery a floating silver cloud appears to be drifting through the surrounding trees. The pavilion consists of an undulating canopy made of enormous aluminum sheets polished to a mirror finish that are supported by slender stainless steel columns. It is a structure designed with minimal material and details, an understatement that suits these economically difficult times.

As Ryue Nishizawa, one of Sanaa’s two founding partners, says: “The pavilion is designed to amplify the way things look.” But, as well as playing visual tricks, the swooping roofs, rising up from the ground to the canopies of trees and back down again, also amplify incidental sound: birdsong, the clip-clopping of horses, the thrum of passing traffic.

“When we started sketching ideas,” says Nishizawa, “we thought of water, rainbows and leaves.” In fact one of the best times to visit the pavilion is during a summer downpour. Raindrops reflected in the mirrored surface double in size and if you look up at the ceiling the rain appears to be heading back up into the sky. This year’s pavilion, just like the ones in previous years, illustrates that exceptional modern architecture can be built in London when a client is not afraid of the new and planning restrictions are relaxed.