Every Fan of the NBA: Week 9, Eastern Conference - The NOC by...

Every Fan of the NBA: Week 9, Eastern Conference - The NOC by NOC

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Every Fan of the NBA: Week 9, Western Conference - The NOC by...

Every Fan of the NBA: Week 9, Western Conference - The NOC by NOC

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Every Fan of the NFL: Week 17 Recap - The NOC by NOC

Every Fan of the NFL: Week 17 Recap - The NOC by NOC

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Design matters: Hani Asfour at TEDxBeirut 2012 by TEDxTalks

Design matters: Hani Asfour at TEDxBeirut 2012 by TEDxTalks

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Dis Raps For Hire - Episode 10 by EpicLLOYD

Dis Raps For Hire - Episode 10 by EpicLLOYD

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Every Fan of the NFL: Week 16 Recap - The NOC by NOC

Every Fan of the NFL: Week 16 Recap - The NOC by NOC

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“I Knew You Were Trouble” - Taylor Swift (Sam Tsui...

“I Knew You Were Trouble” - Taylor Swift (Sam Tsui & Kurt Schneider) by KurtHugoSchneider

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White House Time-Lapse: The 2012 Gingerbread Dough White House...

White House Time-Lapse: The 2012 Gingerbread Dough White House by whitehouse

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St. Nicolaaslyceum / DP6

Architects: DP6

Location: Prinses Irenestraat, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Design Team: Richelle de Jong, Chris de Weijer & Robert Alewijnse, Ines van Binsbergen, Harrie Hupperts, Allard de Goeij, Ron van Logchem, Rik den Heijer, Diana de Kroo, Tim Castelijn, Bjorn Bleumink, Jimmy van der Aa, Sarina Gomez

Contractors: J.P. van Eesteren

Client: Stichting V.O. Amsterdam-Zuid

Area: 12,000 sqm

Year: 2012

Photographs: Jeroen Musch

A unique school in a unique location. The St. Nicolaaslyceum forms an integrated part of society, has ambitiously modern views and an open-minded outlook where education is concerned. Sports and culture are the spearheads that make the school stand out. Based on a vision that stimulates education and likes to offer its students a challenge, the design has resulted in a building that offers both security and challenges while supporting the educational concept.

There is room for a wide range of cultural expression: the central atrium can be used as a theater with the bleacher stairs, there are exhibition walls and showcases. The concept of sports has been integrated in the building as a whole. Sunken below ground level, the sports accommodation offers extensive sports facilities, while on the outside it is covered with basketball pitches that students can use during their breaks.

The central atrium connects the various spaces and provides ample light and air while making the building easy to understand and navigate. The concept of Discover as you Learn is made visible in the building by the large diversity of working and teaching environments, the visibility of the supporting structure and systems, and by an interactive panel that visualises the school’s sustainability level.

Interwoven
The new building of the St. Nicolaaslyceum is located along the Amsterdam South Axis, where the Beethoven District meets the Beatrix Park. Its outside areas make the school into an inseparable part of its surroundings. The central atrium is oriented towards the park and the public square, two directions that converge in the atrium to convey a sense of space. External spaces fan out through the building and can become playing field, urban balcony, trial garden or roof terrace for outdoor experiments. The sports hall has been turned around to create a gradual entrance route from the Beethovenstraat.

The large expanse of steps provides seating to make the space suitable for performances. The dark grey tone of the building’s plinth blends in with the outdoor space. The pale green stripes of the educational level above it feature a soft relief that echoes the willows in the park. The rounded corners and the gradual transitions between internal and external spaces give the building a soft and welcoming look. The Mirror Tree by artist Anouk Vogel on the large glass facade almost literally pulls the park into the atrium and across to the more urbanised south side.

Giving shape to an educational concept
The central atrium rises through five floors to form the heart of the St. Nicolaaslyceum. This is where everybody enters the building, where students have their break on the bleachers, where theatre productions are staged, and from where students and teachers fan out into the rest of the school building. Rising from the oak bleacher steps, the central staircase spirals upwards around the grand lobby like an aubergine carpet. Each of the floors offers a view of the central lobby, making it a perfect point of reference as well as creating a sense of intimacy and security inside the compact building.

On the upper floors, the classrooms are arranged on the outside, surrounding multifunctional open areas. At the top of the bleacher stairs, the multimedia centre sits below the mezzanine space that stretches upwards to the atrium roof on the park side to the north. The interior elements for the restaurant, the staff room and the multimedia centre were designed in close consultation with the school’s students and staff.

Sustainability
The St. Nicolaaslyceum is designed with a high target level of sustainability on mind. The all-in design approach to architecture, functionality, supporting structure, systems and building physics has resulted in a highly compact, sustainable, flexible and optimised educational facility. A compact building, optimised use of available daylight, overhangs and sun blinds in the east, south and west facades, daylight-controlled high-frequency lighting, and naturally durable materials are all low-tech applications that have been integrated into the overall design.

More technologically involved solutions such as underground heat and cold buffering in combination with an active concrete core in the floors, a balanced and carbon dioxide-controlled ventilation system with heat recovery (and a very high efficiency of 90%) as well as photovoltaic roof panels contribute to make this a highly sustainable low-energy building. What’s more, this sustainability is visualised by means of an ‘energy mirror’ to show the students what the actual effects are.

St. Nicolaaslyceum / DP6 originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 21 Dec 2012.

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Stanford Scientists Create the World’s First Peel-and-Stick Solar Cells

Solar cells image via Shutterstock

Instead of rigid, cumbersome flat solar panels, you could soon be powering your home and electronics with a sticker. Engineers at Stanford have successfully fabricated thin, flexible solar cells that are able to be peeled and attached to almost any surface. The new technology is described in the December 20th issue of Scientific Reports and details how the team of scientists led by Xiaolin Zheng and Chi Hwan Lee achieved such a remarkable breakthrough. In addition to being dynamic, the peel-and-stick process also reduces cost and weight, making the cells an attractive alternative to their uncompromising relatives.

Read the rest of Stanford Scientists Create the World’s First Peel-and-Stick Solar Cells

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Post tags: chi hwan lee, flexible, nickel, peel and stick, scientific reports, silicon dioxide, Solar cells, stanford, thermal release tape, wafer, wearable technology, xiaolin zheng

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Carol of the Bells (for 12 cellos) - ThePianoGuys by...

Carol of the Bells (for 12 cellos) - ThePianoGuys by ThePianoGuys

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2012: What Brought Us Together by Jean-Louis Nguyen

2012: What Brought Us Together by Jean-Louis Nguyen

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NBA Superstars Sing Jingle Bells by NBA

NBA Superstars Sing Jingle Bells by NBA

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Every Fan’s Girlfriend: NBA - The NOC by NOC

Every Fan’s Girlfriend: NBA - The NOC by NOC

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Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry Building Competition Entry / Ziya İmren and Onat Öktem

The Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry Building proposal by Ziya Imren and Onat Öktem has placed itself in an important position for the development of city of Mersin and its surroundings. Located at the intersection of the two main axes of the city, the proposal will play a major role in this new developing urban area of the city. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Due to the space between the intersections, our proposal has lead to pedestrian ways through the building. Climate and temperature data of city of Mersin has shaped the main idea behind the proposed design. As a base of the design, commercial and office spaces are separated with a horizontal volume.

A social interface platform is introduced in-between the commercial and office spaces to generate a variety of activity spaces for the urban dwellers. Due to the hot and humid nature of the region, generating a natural air conditioning system by circulating air through this social interface is one of the important aspects of the design. On the ground floor the typology of the spaces is organized for the commercial needs to have more façades.

Architects: Ziya İmren and Onat Öktem

Location: Mersin, Turkey

Collaborators: Yakup Kocak, Tamara Nazari

Consultant: Ufuk Cesur

Type: Competition

Year: 2012

Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry Building Competition Entry / Ziya İmren and Onat Öktem originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 19 Dec 2012.

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Webb Chapel Park Pavilion / Cooper Joseph Studio

Architects: Cooper Joseph Studio

Location: Dallas, Texas, United States

Project Team: Wendy Evans Joseph, FAIA (Principal in Charge), Chris Cooper, AIA (Principal in Charge), Chris Good (Project Manager / Design Team), Read Langworthy (Design Team)

Area: 903 sq ft

Year: 2012

Photographs: Eduard Hueber

Associate Architect: Quimby McCoy Preservation Architecture LLP

Structural Engineers: Jaster – Quintanilla Engineering

Electrical Engineers: Gerard & Associates Consulting Engineers

Concrete Consultant: Reginald D Hough, FAIA Architectural Concrete Consultant

General Contractor: Phoenix I Restoration & Construction, Ltd

In Dallas, Texas, the Department of Parks and Recreation is working to replace several decaying, minimal 1960s shelters in the surrounding metropolitan public parks. Sandwiched between a community soccer field and playground, this simple pavilion embraces a passive, natural cooling system that becomes one with the spatial design.

The solution asserts pure geometry to simultaneously achieve bold form and function. A concrete canopy of exaggerated depth enables a simple structure with minimal visible supports to create virtually seamless views of the surrounding site. The result is an impressive cantilever that comfortably sits atop a mere three structural supports.

Inside the pavilion, the heavy shell of concrete opens to reveal four playful, pyramidal voids in the roof. Although a whimsical surprise of color, the ceiling’s primary purpose is a natural ventilation system based on a traditional “palapa:” encouraging the hot Texas air to move through the pavilion. Convection breezes are increased as the bold volume perceptually lifts away from the ground, leaving the seating embedded in a berm where the box once was.

The use of raw concrete as both structure and finish makes the shape both expressive and efficient. Both its conceptual model and execution match the demands of program and community with reductive simplicity. This bold result finds its identity in these dualities.

Webb Chapel Park Pavilion / Cooper Joseph Studio originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 19 Dec 2012.

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