Housing Pilon, Bevk Perovic Arhitekti, Ljubljana, Slovenia
These two buildings, containing 140 apartments, have façades that combine alternating storage areas with yellow balconies. On the site of a disused quarry and adjacent to a busy highway, the rock wall was preserved and planted with greenery, a nod to its former function.
The building embodies the concept of ‘condensing’ the city. The smaller single-person units are positioned on the lower part of the building, which are succeeded by duplex apartments, which in turn are topped by luxurious small penthouse apartments. “These different typologies are clearly visible on the façade, yet the overall image of the complex appears homogenous,” say the architects.
The building’s open and closed elements are signposted with a bold use of colour. Glazed balconies with yellow railings are followed with closed storage units made of velvety black ferrocement plates. In this way, storage has become an element of the façade and divider between different apartments rather than something hidden.
Chips, Alsop Architects, Manchester
The new nine-storey block of 142 units, designed by Alsop Architects in Manchester's New Islington, is a confidence-boosting splash of colour and bold industrial shapes.
“The sun may not shine much in Manchester, but when it does we sit by the canal,” says the UK's Architects' Journal. “The block has presence enough to mark out a space in the potentially formless zone in which it sits. Aligned with the Ashton Canal, and placed hard against its towpath, Chips reinforces one of the stronger existing elements of the site. It also successfully subdivides its bulk, which could have been oppressive.”
Based on a brownfield site, the project has been assessed as achieving and Eco-Homes ‘Excellent’ rating thanks to up-to-the-minute CHP technology and a high-performance building envelope.
Elements of the apartments have been prefabricated, including the bathroom pods, to ensure quality and speed in delivery.
Slovak National Gallery, NL Architects, Bratislava
Gone is the Brutalist façade of the Slovak National Gallery and here is an upturned motorway with stick-on cars and go-faster stripes.
NL Architects were invited by the Dutch Embassy in Bratislava to exhibit a selection of their projects in various stages of development under the exhibition title ‘Modernice!’.
To promote the exhibition, the firm also transformed the exterior of the building itself, which was designed by Vladimir Dedecek.
The 50 metre ‘bridge’ that stretches across the front of the museum was created to help cover a giant billboard that was a slight on Dedecek’s design. The race-car façade is called ‘Feel the difference’. The exhibition will be on view until 21 June.
