Jury Duty

Visiondivision was invited by designboom to act as a part of the jury for the TIFF Award 2012.

Over 3000 proposals from 87 different countries participated and the results will be announced in March during the TIFF fair.

Great Odds

A new competition is out that we're thinking of entering.
The announcement seems promising.

Svartvit

This is a competition entry for a municipality building in Täby, a suburb outside Stockholm.

A municipality building is both a general work space that constantly changes and evolves and a representative house for democracy.
These different functions in one single building can give a rather messy impression and be hard to read and therefore unable to communicate its important content to its citizens.
With our proposal have we tried to separate the different functions by layering them on each other and give them a different appearance depending on function.
This clear idea is also stated in the interior of the building where the different parts are designed according to its function.
The lower part of the building is the institutional and also the public.
This part is designed as open and as accessible as possible. A grand stair goes from the main square to a smaller square that is shared with the adjacent library where outdoor meetings and other events can be arranged.
An acrylic dome that holds the assembly hall pierces the main square from where you can look down on the meetings and also hear them with earphones; one of many democratic gestures that is typical for the lower part of the building to show the transparency in the politics.
The upper part of the building is the non-public one where the officials can work in privacy. This part with general and highly effective offices is raised from the public sector thus creating a roof for the square.


Exterior view of the municipality building facing the new public square


The assembly hall


Exterior view from the library square


Aerial view showing the two seperate functions of the building


Perspective section



Siteplan and plans

Eden Falls

Entry for the competition "Vertical Zoo" in Buenos Aires.

Costanera Sur is an artificial nature made from rubble when the city of Buenos Aires constructed its main highways in the 70s and 80s. A thunderous waterfall makes an addition to this landscape, enhancing this artificial nature into a more paradisesque one.




How it works
The building takes water from the river, cleans it and pumps it up through a system of huge pipes, which also acts as a structural frame.
This water is constantly overflowing the pool on the roof which creates a waterfall on the entire façade that conceals the pipe structure and that turns into energy at basement level through the turbines and the main generator.
The structure is completely self-sufficient and can provide for water and energy for other future structures in the reserve or existing ones in Puerto Madero. It also becomes a unique and striking symbol for the Costanera Sur and the river.



Layout
In the middle lies a core of circulation with elevators and stairs which goes vertically through the whole building. Various floor levels with different functions are outcropped from this package with views of the powerful water curtain. Various cantilevered footbridges breach the waterfall where one can enjoy the views of the Costanera Sur, the city and the river.




The entrance level is dramatic and impressively beautiful as one enters through the thunderous water curtain, over the moat of crocodiles and to a lush patch of jungle with monkeys and tropical birds. Next is the office section with veterinary and food storage facilities.
The waterfall makes air-condition redundant and offers a serene working atmosphere.
A lower observation deck is located on top of the offices where one also can ascend to the animal flats on the upper levels.
The floors for the animals are divided into flats for each species, with a balcony that pierces the waterfall and adds a feature that no other zoo has. Each flat has a typology of plants and vegetation that is suitable for that animal.
Some of the animals, foremost the smaller monkeys and the birds, can roam free in the building.
The café with a souvenir shop and a second observation deck is located a level higher, followed by the auditorium level where the halls are open to the back to see the waterfall.
On top lies a pool with fresh water dolphins and with grand views of the surroundings.

Street Party

Visiondivision's proposal "Street Party" was shortlisted from 3096 proposals for the competition "Thinking outside the parking box", a competition organized by Nissan and Designboom with Karim Rashid as the president of the jury.
See the competition results here and our proposal here and below.



"We are proposing a small addition with existing technology that makes the parked car transform from an inanimate object into an urban device that people on the streets can interact with and benefit from. With Bluetooth technology that is common in almost every cell phone nowadays, you can give the car timed directions to play music and light up the streets as you please. You can either turn in your favorite radio channel on a series of cars or you can make them download your playlist from your phone in a temporary folder. Different volume limits are set depending on the street, making an area that is rather empty at nights, alive with lights and music. "

Tide Tank

Visiondivision has proposed a swimming centre that can regulate the water level from a low tide situation to a high tide giant pool, to take the swimming experience to another level.

The pool area - low tide
The pools face their shallow part towards the dressing rooms to have a safe area when one enters.
The walls in the pool area are made of stainless and brushed steel plates and slightly reflect the water and the bathing people, and become a subtle visual expansion of the room.
Each window has a adjustable shutter which can regulate the light and the views in the pool area. This makes the room constantly changeable and adjusts itself according to the rhythm of the day and the different seasons.


Low tide plan (1st floor)

Two gold colored cliffs rises from the water and divides the more busy adventure area from the calmer main pool. These cliffs has also more functional aspects; the larger one is
hollow and contains two water slides, and it is also the
entrance to the adventure area. Its surface makes it also
possible to climb on. The smaller cliff lies in the children’s pool and has a small water slide.
A undertow channel takes the visitor from the adventure pool to an outside space with an outdoor pool and a Sauna.
The pool area has two big foldable walls to separate the pools even more when this is necessary.


Low tide plan

The pool area - high tide
New possibilities open up when the folding walls are fully retracted.
The windows can be completely shut with the shutters and the water level can be raised by closing the lower vents, to get an enormous pool where one can roam free.
The ambiance of the pool can be controlled from small
passages among the large steel beams; projections of dense jungle, alp backdrops or maybe sweeping whales while you bath.


High tide plan (2nd floor)

The shutters that contain insulation will also save a lot of energy that would have been lost through the windows.
With such a flexible and big room you can easily add new layers of uses that makes the bathing experience even more exciting; theatre with a water theme, bath & cinema, water night club, and opera for example.
The dry part can be used for spectator stands as well as from the exercise rooms on the second floor, and the foyer then becomes a lounge for the event.
The new swimming centre becomes a house of culture with water.


High tide interior


Sections, facades, siteplan

Exterior

Urban Fade

Competition entry for Koivusaari Idea Competition, to create a new city district on a small island just outside Helsinki, Finland.


View from the archipelago


Urban plan


The new district

In Koivusaari you will experience a great urban diversity on a
relatively small island; a dense city core that gradually fades
to smaller premises and that eventually becomes archipelago.
The island becomes a distillation of the best qualities
that each one of the urban typologies has to offer; the intense
city center with offi ces, shops and services close to the bus
and subway station, the medium sized town with more green
areas, restaurants and residential units, the small town that
lies almost in a park situation and fi nally the archipelago with
public piers and pavilions with good life activities.
By keeping it dense, the distances between the new districts
parts is kept short and you don’t have to do so much fi llings
around the island to get a lively city area. This is good for both
the environment and from a economical point of view.


Overlooking the island

Almost every residential unit has a sea view and they also have
a glass room that cantilevers from the façade, creating a new
typology, a deluxe room where you have a panorama over the
ocean and where you can enjoy the cityscape to the fullest.
The city grid is highly effi cient and has many advantages; it
creates lines of views, it has many options of moving around
in the district and it makes the variation in the building scales
even more dramatic, an optical illusion that enhances the
archipelago backdrop.
Koivusaari is planned to accommodate around 5000 people
and have 2500 working places. The island will have about
200 000 m2 residential space, 75000 m2 office space and
45000m2 business premises that makes a total built floor
space area of 320 000 m2.
The land area is a little bit more than 175000 m2.


Street view


Housing prototypes


Plexi model, partly made on the boat to Helsinki

The jury divided the different proposals into four categories; "Upper Class", "Middle Class", "Lower Middle Class" and "Lower Class".
Apparently we were placed in the "Lower Middle Class" category.

Here is the winner and an Upper Class project according to the Finnish elite thinkers;


Kuunari by Ilja Svärd, the winner and one of the "Upper Class" projects.
Congratulations wishes all of us at the lower middle class office visiondivision.
Hopefully we will one day be as good as you! Inshallah

Pharaoic field trip

2008-05-12

Some of you might been wondering about the lack of updates on this blog for the last weeks, the reason for this is that the office has been taken some vacation in Rio.

To get a kickstart after the holidays, VD decided to enter another grand competition and has therefor taken the VD-crew into the deep jungle of South America to persue greatness in all of its forms.

The result of the competition will be announced in a couple of weeks, so stay alert!

Meanwhile enjoy the investigational field trip video

Mirror woods

We were hired by the Swedish architectural firm "Tema" to cooperate with them in an invited competition for a housing project in Örnsköldsvik, the Swedish Mecca of Ice Hockey.
The prices on apartments in northern Sweden are fairly low since there are a lot of available empty houses in that region, so the proposal needed to be cost efficient. While the floor plan were designed as efficient and simple as possible with cheap extravaganzas such as sight lines, zoning and so on, we put our efforts on making something unique with the outdoor spaces. Since the houses are laid out pointing towards the sea, they create a sloping space towards the ocean which in this case where filled with birch trees. We tried to make a façade that mimic the aesthetics of the birch trunk to get a building that corresponded with its surrounding environment. We put highly reflective and slightly tilted steel sheets between the windows, making a façade that mimic the pattern of a birch trunk and at the same time reflected the birch trees in the voids between the buildings. The result became quit poetic we must say.


Steel sheet façade


Site Plan


Floor Plan



Diagrams showing zoning, direct light, movement, construction lines, sight lines, options

Apartment

Big Combo

The Netherlands is a densely populated country, with only a small part of the original nature left untouched. New developments are erected in the outskirts of the cities and slowly expands on the expense of the nature due to the high land value in the city cores. How can we slow the progress of this exploration of new land and improve density and sustain ecological and economical interests? One aspect would be to improve the efficiency of how we use our built space.Normally a house is only used 50% of the day, why not make that 100%?


So, lets share our built space more efficently, and make it more dense in order to have a more active neighbourhood around the clock as well. A residential unit that can partly be transformed into office space during daytime, shops that can be turned into hostels in nighttime and so on.


A compact building with generous semipublic spaces throughout the house, two big courtyards with different themes, one has a giant pool that also is open to the public, the other has a wild wetland garden that also functions as the new districts water system cleaner. In the core of the house a channel has been dugged out and this space functions as a bustling commercial centre covered in glimmering gold paint, consisting of small modules that can be removed/added with cranes from the ceiling. You can add whatever you want as long as you have an object that has a size smaller than the given plot you rent.


Enjoy the immense pool surrounded by a silver shimmering facade towards the courtyard that reflects down light. A great variety of semi public gardens in the building makes interesting relaxation spots and adds transparency to the compact building. In the pool floats fake islands if you have to take a rest from all the swimming. At wintertime the pool is drained and sport activities can take place.


The harbour/commercial centre will be the magnet in the new development that will take place in this area.
The enormous potential of the commercial variety and the vast gold covered space inside will certainly
attract its crowd. It will also enhance the identity of Amsterdam as a city with a special relation to its water
and will also give a new interesting approach to the harbour district.
A feeling of a bustling harbour market with food from around the world, tattoo parlours, bars, temporary
events, everything imaginable. The whole room could be used for bigger events as well.


One of the courtyards mix pleasure with purpose,
a designed wetland garden that attracts birdlife and also cleans the water in the neighbourhood.
A nice place to stroll around to observe frogs, owls and mushrooms perhaps.

Section

Level 1

Level 1-7

Level 8

Level 10

Modul Royal

Modul Royal, proposed for a small town in Sweden in a park environment, we tried to propose something for the +55 category that wants to sell their villa and move into the town, where there are more service and closer to things, but still be able to enjoy the advantages of their former living.

So the concept is fairly simple; stacked housing with a lot of gardens to combine the best of both the countryside and the town, density and service with exclusiveness and a green environment.


The competition wanted a modular system to make it cheap and easy to construct.
Stacked in different heights, the houses emerges.


A unique detail is this "cactus-circulation".
Three houses shares this elvevator/stairs module, and ramps that you can flip up connects the individual houses, so the effect will be like a medieval castle.



To please the competition regulations, we divided some villas into smaller apartments.
The cactus is also a glass house with tomatoes, roses and herbs.

Another important detail is the facade.
The gaps between the sheetings makes it possible to grow plants to cover the building in.