Nakagawa Chemical CS Design Center

emmanuelle moureaux | designboom

Office and showroom for Nakagawa Chemical Inc., a famous maker for their adhesive "colored films" products. Over 1100 different colored film samples are displayed in acrylic furniture making beautiful colors float in the space. Samples could be experimented in large scale with moveable transparent glass partitions and under different lighting conditions using as many as 48 light boxes (incandescent, fluorescent, and LED) installed randomly on the wall.

Inspired by the Japanese traditional sliding screens, Emmanuelle has been developing “Shikiri”, a new concept which literally means “dividing space with colors” in English. She creates spaces using colors, not as a finishing element applied at the end of the design process in order to decorate the space, but as three-dimensional layers, which create the space. By a very distinguish use of colors, she designs new concepts, new atmospheres which give emotions to people.

Biochemistry Center

Hawkins Brown | arch daily

Laminated colored glass fins were fixed to the mullions of the curtain wall system. The fins provide a sense of privacy for those working in the labs and their varying color palette was selected to “pick up on the surrounding context.”

LEGO House

James May | Apartment Therapy

The two-story Lego palace is located in the middle of a vineyard and has a working bathroom. James used bricks pieced together by 272 Legos. Over three million bricks were used so that’s about 816 million Lego pieces.

Cover Up Project

Visiondivision | arch daily

Cover Up project is part of a bigger commission to improve several power plants for an energy company. The firm created a storage facility for several heating containers that could be quickly outsourced and serve as back-up power should the city experienced a black-out.  Working in an industrial area where the company was used to break ins and vandalism, the firm designed a “good looking, roofless, and flexible-as-an-anaconda building.”  Good looking in the sense that this storage facility could better the rough surroundings; roofless due to the fact that the large containers needed to be transported with a special crane truck; and flexible since the need for additional containers in the future should also be considered.

A decorative motif covers the exterior, yet the “artwork” is more than what meets the eye.  Various surveillance cameras, a rainwater collector, and even water taps to clean the facade are incorporated into the art.  For example, the main door is disguised in a forest, with the keyhole in one eye of a bear, while canisters of air fresheners hide amidst the butterflies and flowers.

During the day, the façade will appear neat, white and clean.   Yet, as soon as the sun sets, “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.”

Sustainable City

LAVA Architects | inhabitat

LAVA wanted to create a distinct outdoor public plaza modeled after traditional European plazas. In order to maintain a comfortable atmosphere, the architects designed “solar umbrellas” to shade the plaza and keep the air moving through. Modeled after flowers, the solar umbrellas open up during the day and close up at night to keep the plaza cool.

The city center includes many other integrated sustainable design features, such as adaptive building facades that can adjust and angle themselves to receive more or less sun, and wall surface materials that respond to changing temperatures and contain minimal embedded energy.