Cover Up

This project is a part of a bigger commission to improve several power plants for an energy company.

In this first stage we we’re appointed to create a storage facility for various industrial pipes but foremost for several heating containers that with a short notice should be able to be outsourced around the city as back-up power during blackouts. The containers are quite big and are lifted from the storage with a special crane truck, making a roof impossible. Additional future containers should also be considered in the scheme, which called for a shelter with the flexibility of an anaconda stomach.

The surrounding area is industrial and quite rough and the company has had some problems with break in and vandalizing which also had to be taken into account. But the major issue was the fact that the present depot looked miserable and they wanted a neat looking package to encapsulate their bits and pieces.
So we made a good looking, roofless, safe and flexible-as-an-anaconda building.

The part of the structure that faces the surrounding is slightly higher and rigid and is also functioning as a wall to the premise. The inner part is not so high because these wall systems should be able to be altered and movable.

We made three modes with different area sizes with the help of pre-made holes in the ground which the walls on the flexible part of the structure could switch between when necessary. Some wall segments are also gates.

Plans of the different modes

The whole façade is made out of perforated steel plates.

The inner part of the structure is perforated in a mathematical and repetitive fashion to minimize wind loads, permit views into the storage without experience the clutter.

On the rigid part that is facing the surroundings, we perforated a grand motive with a story that is weaving in the energy company, the city and different world natures into a surrealistic “total nature”. This nature is actually also a disguise.
Different building details and devices are hidden in the motive; the main door for example is disguised in a forest, with the keyhole in one eye of a bear. Various surveillance cameras are hidden behind different creatures; for example behind the watchful eyes of a tiger in a mountainous setting, in the deep gaze of the founder of the city, Karl IX, in the bewildered look of a picnic lady from the great Swedish painter Carl Larsson.

From the savanna motive, water taps are inserted in the end of elephant trunks, to clean the façade if necessary.
A rainwater collector from the inside of the storage leaps out through a pipe that makes the horse of King IX urinate. To gentle the smell of the containers somewhat, we put canisters of air fresheners amid some butterflies and flowers in the painting.

Detail drawings

The motive is quite vast but during daytime the façade will hardly be visible unless you stand close to it, making it neat, white and clean. As the sun sets however, the colored lights that lit up selected parts of the motive will transform the building into a huge glowing painting, giving the passing cars on the nearby highway some inspiration along the way and the pedestrians a wondrous object in the anonymous and harsh industrial surroundings.

The project is still under evaluation, we will let you know when we have more information.

Power Up

Here comes an additional text with images to the video posted under the "Collection" post earlier this month;

Visiondivision got the comission to give 8 power plants in gothenburg a new identity.We gave them a collection of projects, ranging from a small scale to pharaoic wonders.

The biggest part of the commissions was to renovate one of the city’s major power plants; Sävenäs. The plant is today a collage of different non good looking building parts. Our sketches vary from low-cost solutions with a big effect, to a more iconic brave architecture.

The first sketch was to paint the whole thing blue, It would merge the different building parts into one major complex mass. The blue paint also fades from matt at the lower parts of the building to glossy in its highest parts.

At night different projections forms a moving story on how the power plant is functioning, following the story the viewer will see how wood is turned into energy and then see the waste products going up the chimney as water vapour.

To manifest that the smoke is actually just water, we propose to project dolphins and other sea animals in it. Projecting in the smoke also gives a big visual effect and can be seen from miles around.

We also had to do a more brave proposal, after all we are visiondivision. So we made a true iconic wonder; a digital volcano. The construction is rather simple; a net is draped over the whole building with LED-light, starting at the 100 m high chimney. The LED-device is also a solar cell, making the system energy-independent. Each one of the devices can change color and therefor can the volcano take any visual expression.

The power plant has a great exposure potential due to its strategic location next to the highway and the railway leading in and out of Gothenburg.Advertisment, concerts or maybe digital art? The options are endless and the company will have a media icon unseened of in this part of the world.

Sävenäs power plant has many employees that now will experience the net as a big roofwith a ever-changing repertoire of visual delights.

Plan: volcano net

The second part of the commission was to renovate seven smaller power plants in the suburbs of Gothenburg. Visiondivision made a list of improvements that would be cheap, quick and function separately from each other. The tree major design concepts were to clean up the surrounding areas of the plants, design more visible signs and to surprise visitors by adding something new to the context.

To add a new and more positive design to the plants we decided to upgrade the building parts with the most negative associations; the surrounding fences. By filling the fences with Plexiglass we created a thematic image that can be seen from a distance.Parts of the image could also be projected at the facades by putting headlamps in front of them.

Drawing : Plexiglass filled fence

Älvedon

Boring Gothenburg with their river that once harboured important shipindustry and was the true pride of the city, but now lies like a dead ugly grey snake and just causing trouble and distances.
This town needs a headache pill.
A rotating, reflecting skyscraper is placed in the river that divides gothenburg, to stich the city together and to push the centre more towards the riverside to inject new life into this area and to strengthen the connections over the river.
heroic in both scale and mission.
The building is a steel construction that cantilevers on a bearing.
The bearing gets power to rotate by the constant force of the river.
As the building rotates for boats to pass, it also mirrors the city and lets its inhabitants get a variated view; riverscape, cityscape.

Headache pill

Plan

The skyscraper is facing the river at daytime

And the city at nighttime

Bland Vallmo och Tallar

The task was to build 1000 housing units in the outskirt of Mölndal, a commuter town to Gothenburg.
The site is flat and rather undefined and is now the home to Åby horse race arena, the second biggest of its kind in Sweden.
Around the arena is a sprawl of horse stables and enclosed pastures, all this will be relocated to another area in a near future and this will liberate a great deal of land.

To create a notion of identity to the complete new residential area, a vast meadow will function as the visual core in the area.
The houses will cut through the meadow as long piers in a comb-like manner.
In between the apartment structures, there are terrace houses to create a healthy urban mix.

Main posters

The masterplan

The meadow

Housing units at the meadow

The forrest

Housing units at the forrest

Contact

The nearby cultural institutions at Götaplatsen, the most prominent square in Gothenburg, wanted a box office to reach more people and to vitalize the square.

Instead of the ordinary cube to be placed somewhere in the solemn square, a bunch of robots will do the job instead.
They work in ten hour shifts and then roam the streets of Gothenburg in their spare time to interact with the people.
This will activate the square, sell more tickets and be a lot more of fun.


The square at daytime


Square, plan


Box office


The square with the robots at night time

Plan, night

Interactions

Technicalities

Commercial Church

Urban stores have understood the power of window shopping. Somehow that knowledge never seems to reach the architecture of church buildings.
Amhult Church outside Gothenburg, Sweden, wants to attract 35 year old parents and their kids. If you want to attract young families, do like Mc Donald’s, show your product through a huge window and if you want to be even more attractive give some candy to the kids.
This church is designed to accomplish this demands still remaining its primal focus on being a sacral space. Through a system of curtains the church can be a sacral space for inner peace and one minute later transform into a basketball hall or a drive-in wedding. Its location next to the main street of Amhult with big panoramic window showing the church activity might help people to window shop God.

Plan

Section

Model

A transparent first floor to attract new potential clients

Fabric that can close selected spaces rapidly

Elevator from the upper floor for the priests

Planeto Perfecto

We made a proposal to an existing emergency ward that wanted to renovate its content to better handle its needs. The existing ward is grey, dull and looks sick itself.
We planted a colorful virus that would transform the boredom into a joyful and energizing place where one could actually become better and not be depressed by the instutional feeling that now reins in the corridors and the walls of this miserable place.


Virus


New plan with a better flow and program enhancements.

Exterior view with the new lobby in the foreground

3D-plan

Sections and 3d

Lobby

Material and flow diagram

Connection diagram