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San Francisco, California and the surrounding ‘Bay Area’ is home to roughly eight million people. This image of ‘The Bay’ was captured by a satellite at a low angle from 800 miles away over the Pacific Ocean.

This is our final reminder that you can get 20% off this print, and many others, during our Summer Sale which ends tonight at midnight PST. Just use code SUMMER20 at checkout. Discount is also automatically applied to all framed pieces. Visit over-view.com/shop/prints to see what’s available!

37.777500°, -122.416389°

Source imagery: Maxar

https://dailyoverview.tumblr.com/post/658354963237486593

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Masters of the unexpected, Ester Bruzkus Architects are back with an audacious and playful apartment articulated around a single joinery box. Skilfully balancing restraint with exuberance, a varied palette of deep green, warm gold, violet and brown tones harmonise between planes of raw concrete in this considered Berlin home.

The box was arranged away from the walls in place of conventional rooms, as circulation flows on all sides rooms materialise between it and the existing volume. “It is a really simple idea – to put one box in the middle of the space – but it does so much,” says Ester Bruzkus.

Finished in a seductive deep green, the unit indulgently contrasts with the apartment’s industrial bones. “This is the essential strategy of Mies’ Farnsworth House – a box of richly contrasting material inside another box,” explains partner Peter Greenberg.

Previously empty, the existing top floor apartment was wrapped in exposed concrete walls with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. This format informed the spatial planning with the kitchen and bedroom occupying the two glazed sides with continuous balconies blurring the inside and out and, on the interior, a more private enfilade of rooms for bathing.

The kitchen takes up one of the long sides of the green box. Decidedly monochromatic vibrant sheets of green quartzite are interlaced with the lacquered cabinetry, extending to the kitchen island. “I thought it would be fun to have a green kitchen,” says Bruzkus. “When you expect everything to be one way, it should absolutely be another.”

Tubular lighting by PSLab extends from the ceiling adding a playful edge to the boxes’ rigid formality. Decked out with a hidden rollout modular sauna the colour combinations are not the only surprise in the design.

Sitting between one edge of the green box, anchored by a built-in library and an existing wall is the living room. Weaving a compelling web of contrast a brass box seemingly rests upon blocks of Sierra ebru stone and red travertine, a fireplace snugly embedded between the monolithic volumes. Startlingly focal, these rectilinear forms engage with the overarching design strategy, exploring a relationship with boxes.

Materials are artfully paired in the bathroom with a double sink made from green marble, black steel and pink basins meeting with the muted limestone of the shower and bathtub. “The actual material details are super important: how materials […] combine can determine whether something is beautiful or not,” Greenberg shares. Curvilinear additions interplay with the blocky architecture with circular cabinetry handles, a rounded oversized mirror and a strikingly Turrell-ian orbed skylight above the shower.

With a sense of discovery around every corner Ester Bruzkus Architekten blissfully blends materials, colours and textures with more detail than The Secret Lives of Colour to create a home that is at once cool and cosy.

Related: Restaurant REMI in Berlin by Ester Bruzkus Architekten.

| The article Green Box Apartment, Berlin by Ester Bruzkus Architekten. appeared first on Yellowtrace. |

https://www.yellowtrace.com.au/ester-bruzkus-architekten-green-box-apartment-berlin-bouchestrasse/

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The canals of Amsterdam were developed with four concentric half-circles of canals emerging at the city’s main waterfront. In the centuries since, the canal system has expanded and has been used for defense, water management, and transport. They remain a hallmark of Amsterdam to this day.

This image, and many others, are available in our Printshop. A reminder that our flash Summer Sale ends tomorrow at midnight PST. Use code SUMMER20 at checkout for 20% off all prints. Discount automatically applied to framed pieces. Visit over-view.com/shop/prints to see what’s available!

52.366667°, 4.900000°

Source imagery: Maxar

https://dailyoverview.tumblr.com/post/658255420630122496

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We’re doing our first-ever flash SUMMER SALE — 20% of all Printshop orders, this weekend only!

Here are some of our favorites from the Printshop, which now features more than 💯 of the best images from past posts:

1. Santiago, Chile

2. Singapore Tankers (detail)

3. Bolivian Deforestation

4. Moab Potash Ponds

5. Boeing Airplane Factory (detail)

Visit over-view.com/shop/prints this weekend to see what’s available. Use code SUMMER20 at checkout. Sale ends Sunday 8/1 at midnight PST. Have a great weekend, 🌎!

https://dailyoverview.tumblr.com/post/658158859821678592

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Calm waves roll into São Martinho do Porto — a village in Portugal with a shell-shape bay surrounded by a sand beach. The bay formed when a strip of land along the coast was eroded and then divided by the Atlantic Ocean. Because the opening to the ocean is still relatively small (825 feet or 250 meters), the waves that roll into the beach are almost always calm.

See more here: https://bit.ly/3rIIQcT

39.513000°, -9.134000°

Source imagery: Maxar

https://dailyoverview.tumblr.com/post/658080287988809728

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Photography by Dane Alonso.

Making the intangible tangible through awareness of sunlight while using the principles of ocular-centrism to create a comfortable vagueness is Daniela Bucio Sistos’ UC House. This 550 square metre home is purposely made to appear humble on the exterior, mischievously waiting to surprise visitors as they travel up upon the concealed entrance – offering an experience that resembles a brick themed pavilion stitched with green house principles.

Located in the outskirts of Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico, UC House unfolded from the clients’ request to create a building to house over 8,000 books. Along with Bucio Sistos’ principal focus in creating “a project with certain spatial ambiguity between the interior and exterior spaces”, the house’s corridor-like plan achieves a harmonious outcome.

Past the concealed entrance reveals a grand circular foyer serving as the core axis of the home with a corridor spine that stretches across its length. Cosily flanking between the corridor are four bedrooms, kitchen and living with floor to ceiling glazing that looks towards the cedar trees beyond.

Related: Iturbide Studio in Mexico City by Taller Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo.

Photography by Mariano Renteria.

Photography by Mariano Renteria.

Initially a site with very minimal vegetation, Bucio Sistos introduced microclimates, organising sightlines to have a form of connection to the surrounds. The grand foyer’s central point is marked by a singular tree gently crowned by an open framed skylight, while circular windows punctured on either side offer an implied expansion of the space.

Towards the end of the house, just before the garden, is a terrace with exposed framework, and custom concrete casted joinery is fitted with a pocket to allow plants to grow. Stretching to the end of the garden is a bespoke water feature for tickling water to reinforce a peaceful reverie.

Drawing colours from the landscape, the interior is washed in swatches of terracotta’s relationship with light. External walls are characterised by textured and patterned protruding brickwork resembling unevenly stacked books. Exposed yet roughly polished concrete untreated for the ceiling and pigmented in dusty peach line the interior walls.

Photography by Mariano Renteria.

Photography by Dane Alonso.

Photography by Mariano Renteria.

Photography by Dane Alonso.

Photography by Dane Alonso.

With the ceiling lifted enough to allow high-light windows to wrap around each area, and some glazing and skylights fitted with vertical framing – the sense of density and heaviness dissipates from the soft ribbons of light. Circular motifs ripples from the axis – it’s found in the semi-enclosed circle in the doorways gracefully held by the bookshelf; round windows punctured on the external walls of the entrance; circular joinery handles – a constant signal that to inform us of a new destination within.

The layered complexity found in the companionship between materiality and light allows UC House to transport visitors into a realm of summer dreams. Rooms with entrances are aligned slightly off from each other to ignite curiosity and encourage the walk from one room to another. Meanwhile, the natural light serves as a tangible wayfinding mechanism, and materiality is arched and bent as if to signpost another environment within – like a joyful carousel spun from sundial light.

| The article Embracing Ambiguity: UC House in Morelia by Daniela Bucio Sistos. appeared first on Yellowtrace. |

https://www.yellowtrace.com.au/daniela-bucio-sistos-uc-house-morelia-mexico-brick-architecture/

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Like a forest refuge in the sky, Ana Smud has designed an apartment extension on a building rooftop. The contemplative space recreates a small domestic world with wood and exposed concrete walls creating the sensation of living in a cabin, all while situated in the middle of the sprawling concrete jungle of Palermo, Bueno Aires.

Consisting of three floors and plenty of green space, each level offers a different perspective, sometimes a long distance glance at the surrounding city and – from another spot – a more intimate examination of the neighbouring patios and courtyards.

Responding to their clients growing needs, the extension doubles the existing apartments surface area. Now spanning three levels, each floor connects by an open concrete staircase, reminiscent of Tadao Ando’s The Row House. This open area offers an enriching symbiosis between nature and the big smoke, with all living zones feeling connected to that outdoor space. While the external is all about wellbeing the interior focuses on plasticity for practical layouts that can accommodate different daily routines over time.

Related: El Camarin: Small Apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina by IR arquitectura.

Intervening on the ground level to make room for a kitchen, dining room and living area this floor feels open and spacious. White walls, an exposed concrete ceiling and wooden floorboards feel effortlessly naturalistic with potted plants spotted in corners and on shelves. The kitchen is simple with sandy wooden cabinetry, a grey polished cement countertop, these spaces can be separated or integrated thanks to a hidden moving panel system in white.

Meanwhile travelling up a level the vibe gets distinctly more enveloping and warm as the functionality becomes more private. Internally everything is in one homogenous wood material, from the flooring and wall cladding to the ceiling. Articulated around two identical bathrooms that open up into different areas (one acting as an ensuite) this forms a central service nucleus separating the bedroom from a reading nook. With green polished concrete flooring and walls in the bathrooms, their central layout liberates the perimeter of the floor, maximising the incoming natural light. Flanked by two patios, each ‘room’ has a direct relationship with the exterior space.

Upstairs on the third level a botanic haven sits, this terrace surrounds the clients with native vegetation. Out on the wooden deck, it becomes easy to forget the immense urban sprawl below.

With plasticity and transformation key tenants of this project, Ana Smud takes the concept of the flexible living experience to its limits. With the sophisticated panel system of cabinets and moving walls, the interior can be modified and manipulated according to the user’s (ever-changing) needs making this sky forest home not only beautiful but highly functional for years to come.

Related: Buenos Aires Showroom & Office for a Textile Company by Ana Smud, Camila Jalife & Sasha Molczadzki.

| The article Arevalo Rooftop Apartment Extension in Buenos Aires by Ana Smud. appeared first on Yellowtrace. |

https://www.yellowtrace.com.au/ana-smud-arevalo-rooftop-apartment-extension-buenos-aires-architecture/

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A turbine interchange connects the SR 9A and SR 202 in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. Also known as a whirlpool interchange, this structure consists of left-turning ramps sweeping around a center interchange, thereby creating a spiral pattern of right-hand traffic. This type of junction is rarely built, due to the vast amount land that is required to construct the sweeping roads.

See more here: https://bit.ly/3l2xTS5

30.253056°, -81.516194°

Source imagery: Maxar

https://dailyoverview.tumblr.com/post/657975978870571008

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Pigmented patterned concrete defines the shape of space in this two-storey extension on the back of a Victorian House. Designed by Studio Ben Allen, the practice took location into consideration, looking outside of the conventional ‘glass’ box to bring a sense of warmth and enclosure to this North London home.

By taking the humble concrete, a material revered and admonished in equal measure and pushing its corporeal boundaries, the studio has in the process had some serious fun. Given full creative licence by their clients, the project became a testbed for ideas, leading to an exploration into off-site fabrication – something that they felt was lacking in smaller-scale residential or alteration projects.

Inspired by Sir John Soane’s imaginative Lincoln Inn’s Fields home from the clean lines, and careful proportions to skilful use of light sources the eponymously named practice have transformed this piecemeal rear facade into a post-minimalist pied with the pigmented patterned concrete acting as both structure and architectural finish.

Emboldened by the existing Victorian brickwork that is decorated but also load-bearing the architects embraced this ‘what you see is what you get’ aesthetic to develop their own grammar of ornament throughout. Celadon green columns and beams create a framework for the salmon colour structural wall panels of the first-floor bathroom. Internally the brazen shades of pigment continue with salmon counters, sink, floors and benches and an electric blue balustrade. You name it, it’s probably pigmented in concrete!

Beyond the parade of polychroma, the architects looked at bringing diffused light down into both the kitchen and bathroom with louvred vaulted ceilings. A double-height space connects the new ground floor spaces with the freshly made mezzanine on the first floor, which in turn is connected to the main stair. This void allows light to penetrate deep into the house while also creating visual and aural connections throughout. Additional openings bridge the divide between the old and new builds, orchestrated around this central void.

With a focus on beauty, easily the most luxurious new room would have to be the upstairs bathroom. Designed to feel like a hammam its bottom half is drenched in the signature celadon green concrete panels with a custom bath and sink while the white arches of the louvred vaulted ceiling feel divine in the purest sense of the word. Bespoke brass spouts and fixtures only add to the special spa at home feeling.

The pattern on the main facade is mirrored in the balustrade which was CNC cut by the architect and delivered as an easy to assemble kit of parts. With offsite fabrication being the favoured mode of production it greatly reduced time on site with the mainframe and walls of the extension being erected in just three days.

Looking at the lighter side of concrete, Studio Ben Allen has approached this renovation with respect and ingenuity. This project provides a fresh perspective for the owners and some food for thought for the rest of us.

This definitely isn’t your average reno.

| The article Not Your Average Reno: House Recast in London by Studio Ben Allen. appeared first on Yellowtrace. |

https://www.yellowtrace.com.au/studio-ben-allen-house-recast-london-residential-architecture/

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The Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon is the largest active wildfire in the United States, having burned more than 410,000 acres (1,660 square km) in the past three weeks. This Overview shows the blaze on July 9th, just a few days after it was sparked by lightning on July 6th. More than 2,220 workers have managed to contain roughly 53% of the fire, yet at least 160 homes have been destroyed and another 2,000 residences are under evacuation orders.

See more here: https://bit.ly/3zFFSIL

42.627996°, -120.964973°

Source imagery: Planet

https://dailyoverview.tumblr.com/post/657888523352997888