Wednesday, 9 October 2013

Looking for... stretching volumes

Well, so after a series of thoughts made on the plan of the square and on what I'm looking for, I went to the university library and I have also started my research through the web, on architecture sites and on Pinterest as well.
First of all, I have realized that I need a structure that can be enlarged/streched when the café is open since the dimensions in which it has to return when it's close aren't enough for 8 seatings + the kitchen.
In the "Portable Architecture" book by Pilar Echavarria M. I found the design of a container (FRED is the name) by Oskar Leo and Johannes Kaufmann.


SOURCE: http://prefabcosm.com/home/Fred/


SOURCE: http://ecovidainternational.com/favorite-architecture/portable-building-fred-austria/

As you can see from these pictures the architects had designed a mechanism that allows to have a double space. This obviously helps in terms of transport and costs. But it forces the client to open this box everytime to go in. Certainly it's a very simple movement and allows to have a restroom block (with kitchen and/or bathroom) placed in the same area. This helps to read easily the plan and could have also a thermal insulation funcion. Why not? This sounds familiar for me because I start to think about the plans by Louis Kahn in which you can always read his neatness in locating restrooms and kitchen blocks.
This is the kind of design that I want to recreate. A neat plan in which you can still find a research work about materials and shape.

On Pinterest I found this project from Storeage, an Amsterdam based retail design agency, ING Express. It looks very simple, I mean I don't think they had to think about how to make warm or cold this space. It's more like an installation. But I really like this design since just turning a facade they managed to build another space. Yes, it's an open space but it works, I think it attracts people because having a first look you can see that there is a space behind the counter completely dedicated to customers. And also the jutting out shingle helps to read this invitation. And again, on the other side, there is still a costumers space but open.


SOURCE: http://retaildesignblog.net/2011/10/25/storeage-creates-mobile-coffee-bar-and-office-for-ing/



What really make this design work well is the wall with the counter. Again just one area within this kind of space containing kitchen machinery.


Here there are some sketches about what I would like to obtain. In the plan you can see my attempt to think with 60x60cm modules, a fixed measure for kitchen. And there is also my attempt to recrate a volume sliding off the main one. I was also thinking to a mechanism that makes the counter go out from the main volume, to attract people.




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