Building materials

Hollmén Reuter Sandman Architects was in the beginning of the year 2007 invited to design the TunaHAKI Centre in Moshi, Tanzania. TunaHAKI Centre is a shelter for AIDS orphans and street children in Moshi, Tanzania. It was founded in 1998 by David and Mary Ryatula, and ever since they have saved the lives of many. The Centre provides each child with shelter, food, clothing, medical care, and ensures that each child attends school. It also encourages training in the arts, using acrobatics, dance, music and drama as life-saving tools. Through therapeutic arts training, the children gain self-esteem, learn cooperation skills, and they are able to form something many of them have never had: a family. All children at the Centre are also enco... More

The village of Lupsingen consists of a small old center and a much larger residential area of single-family homes. The most popular mixture of remoteness and close proximity to the city center of Basel 30 minutes away is justification for this proportion. The house is set on a hillside on the outer edge of the residential area, backed by the forest to the northeast and overlooking farmland to the southwest. The building’s volume interprets the local building codes in an unexpected yet relaxed way. The code allows saddleback roofs and hipped roofs only. In order to benefit from the diverse qualities of the site Luca Selva Architects opted for an undirectional volume and thus chose the hipped roof. To avoid a static impression, the whole v... More

Urbanism The community center orients itself to the main intersection, adopting the urban approach of the surrounding buildings at this important junction. The marked volume sits upon a base that structures the surrounding space with terraces, stairs, and ramps, while also providing necessary flood protection. The compact, facetted shape produces differentiated spaces depending on the perimeter situation. The generous open space on the south side, for example, spans along Grimselstrasse all the way to the town hall. The new community center and the town hall, the most noteworthy buildings, amplify the urban situation by means of this new square. A new roundabout is proposed for the street intersection. This would guarantee on one hand eff... More

The campus of Lappeenranta University of Technology is located six kilometres outside the town centre. In 1974, when the University’s first phase was completed, the site was just woodland, and Finland was going through a phase of university decentralisation. With all other modern Finnish universities there have been architectural competitions, but this was not the case in Lappeenranta. This point of departure may have had something to do with the situation that the designer of the seventh phase is the fifth architect of the campus. The initial idea was that the area would expand according to a herringbone plan, along a dominant central path. The guiding principle has gradually weakened and the latest phase departs from it altogether, be... More

The site of the Osler House lies at the edge of Brasilia’s pilot plan, at the tip of one of Paranoá Lake estuaries. The house is a poetic commentary on modern architecture, above all on Brazilian modernism, starting from a contemporary re-reading of the building materials and techniques. The plan of the Osler house is structured by a ground floor volume, a suspended volume and a deck with an outdoor pool. The box of concrete and wood on ground, houses the main suite, a bedroom, bathroom, the utilities area and the garage. The vertical wooden brises filter the light and can open in their entirety, diluting the relationship between the internal and the external. The upper volume propped on the ground-floor volume, on one side, and o... More

●Making a self build school in DR Congo An opportunity rose in a small social interchange between professors at my University. A professor from DR Congo talked about his wish to establish a progressive school and manage it at his home in his own country, later on his life. Therefore, we have decided that the laboratory, professionalized in the educational method, can build its school educational programs, and we can design the architectural hardware for his school. Democratic Republic of the Congo (old Republic of Zaire) owns the third largest land in Africa and also owns the abundant underground natural sources. Although the civil war has continued for a long time, the western capital, Kinshasa, was relatively stabilized, and the c... More

Multifunctional swimming pool in Purmerend, with six different pools and a great lucidity of concept, elaboration, and materialization. No budget was expended on exuberant design, it was primarily invested in functionality and high-quality building materials. The building lies on an island in the local Leeghwater Park, and for that reason it was designed as a light and transparent pavilion, giving rise to the idea of an open spot in the woods with a lake. The complex accommodates an eight-lane competition pool, an instruction pool, a pool specifically for the elderly and the handicapped, and a recreation pool designed as a water playground with a super wildwater creek, a waterfall shower, and adventure islands. There is another pool on the... More

Introduction The Slunakov – Centre for ecological activities of the city of Olomouc has been designed as part of a project entitled “Slunakov, facilities for ecological activities – educational biocenter”. The facilities are to be used to educate the public about the environment and its processes and to support public environmental awareness. The building will also be used as the information center and the entrance to the Nature Protection Area of Litovelske Pomoravi. The main aims of the Center are providing one-day and weeklong environmental education programs for school-aged groups and professional seminars on ecology and education. Because the Center has been designed as an energy-saving building, it will also provide the public with a... More