An installation for:
BIG ENOUGH? // Winter 2012 Architecture Exhibition // Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, CANADA

In November 2011, rzlbd was asked to participate in an architectural exhibition titled BIG ENOUGH? The exhibition is arranged by Harbourfront Centre and intended to explore: What is big enough? How much space do we really need? And how can these needs be accommodated in a city where space is such a limited commodity? The installation had to investigate the idea of what is big enough.
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The fractured tectonic of the Santiago Ydañez Museum, in the town of Puente de Génave expresses the relationship between the work of the artists, the site and the building program. Conceptually a jazz improvisation, the intersection of the integrated and sculpted grids is conceived as a musical rhythm where the new museum becomes a reactive and interactive part of its landscaped setting.

The artists’ expressive and forceful works are represented through a ‘dance of loose gestures’, and the new museum represents the musicality and juxtaposition of these gestures. As the artist discovers that repetitive motion can evolve into improvisation, the architectural language introduces three constituents of jazz music, rhythm, proportion and improvisation, to construct a tense, concentrated and unexpected ensemble.
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Story

Since 1995, the Guinguette Pirate has developed an artistic and cultural project on the water, refered to as «intermediate» boats, heritage boats rehabilitated into concert halls (the Guinguette Pirate and Batofar) and through interdisciplinary and outdoor events : «Musée imagianire», «Café de la marine», «Piratages» and «Sous la Plage». It is for the 2004 festival Sous la Plage, that ENCORE HEUREUX had carte blanche and produced a temporary installation with hundreds of hanging zebras «Sous les Zèbres».

In 2006, the Guinguette Pirate asks ENCORE HEUREUX to produce schematics for the conversion of a boat, the Emile Allard, into a cultural venue. However, ultimately the construction of a completely new barge that was chosen for the Petit-Bain project.
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© Jeroen Musch

Schiphol’s General Aviation (GA) Terminal is where the private and business flights of Heads of States, members of the Royal Family, CEO’s, pop stars and top football players are handled. As a reaction to the inconvenience of flying today with low-cost airways and long queues, VMX found it’s inspiration in the terminals from the era in which aviation was seen as a pleasure and had a luxurious appeal.

When flying on a private plane it should be possible to reach the plane as efficiently as possible, without long queues and excessive security control. VMX has tried to optimise this luxury by allowing the car to enter the middle of the building at the drop-off, with the shortest distance possible to the waiting plane under a large canopy, sheltering the passenger from rain, wind or the paparazzi.
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© Cecile Septet

The project takes place in the north of Paris, in Pierre Rebiere Street, a 600 meters long and 25 meters wide straight line. It is surrounded by the Batignoles’ cemetery on one side and by the back entrance of the international high school Honoré de Balzac on the other. The transformation of this narrow abandoned street allows the establishment of whole string of new buildings.

The local rules for urbanism and the scope statements associated to this neighborhood minimizes plastic expressions. As a result it is not allowed to open any views on the cemetery. Thus directly implying a blind front for the future building and making it impossible to have normal front to front flats. The project impressively manages to get around those constraints: each of the flat benefits from both multiple sights and light sources at any time of day and year.
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Athletica Physio, by Martha Franco Architecture & Design, has been announced as a winner in the 2011 Grand Prix Du Design Awards.

© Nicolas Ruel Photographe

The private physiotherapist’s office is just 1100 square feet in size but Martha Franco Architecture & Design‘s role was a big one: to create a unique new brand for Athletica Physio, an all encompassing aesthetic that includes the design of all architectural interventions and interior design, plus furniture and all graphic elements from a logo and signage to business cards and stationary. [ Editor's note: if you're looking for vancouver painting contractors for your interior project in Canada, you may visit www.rivaspainting.ca ]

Martha Franco says: “The client has a fresh attitude to design. She is young and open minded and her intention was very clear: she wanted to create a unique brand and space; a new vision for physiotherapy changing the standard approach. Our work fulfilled that wish, bringing a truly coherent design ideal to all aspects of Athletica Physio.
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“Dar HI is not a hotel nor a classical SPA but more a place where you can experience withdrawal and benefit from a spiritual thalassotherapy a few hours away from Paris and in the middle of the desert”. Patrick Elouarghi

© Jérôme SPRIET

After the experience of the HI hotel in Nice, now Dar HI in Nefta which is the fruit of the collaboration between matali crasset, Patrick Elouarghi and Philippe Chapelet with a new concept of eco-retreat. Matali literally rose a citadel, from the sand, dedicated to well being. Protected by surroundings walls you find a composition of elevated houses that constitute the Dar HI as a small village. The overall architectural goal was to give a strong proposition while in harmony with the natural site and the local life.

Dar HI’s main colours are ochre and sand with a comprehensive choice of body and spirit care within areas that are private or communal, a pool, a restaurant and a Spa.
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© DAICI ANO

Shima Kitchen was a renovation project to create a venue for arts, and dinning from an old vacant house in a village on Teshima. Teshima is a rural island in the Seto Inland Sea of Western Japan, just next to the famous art tourism island of Naoshima.

Around this old house were vacant lands where several other buildings had been demolished a long time ago. An old warehouse, two persimmon trees,and many smaller fig trees remained. We changed the house into an open style kitchen, refitted the warehouse as an art gallery, and extended a sunshade awning around the trees to create an outdoor theatre. The theatre was based on a traditional NOH style theater, with its stage(butai), veranda (hashikake), and gallery (sajiki), but was designed toadapt to various kinds of event programs such as live music, modern performance art, folk dance, and community festivals.
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