Dry Cleaning Laundry | Pristine Conceirge | Princeton | New Jersey | JZA+D

Our clients at Pristine wanted this small space to represent a departure from your conventional dry cleaning experience. Based on this requirement, the JZA+D design inserts a white central feature in the space that unites and separates each of the functional elements of the project. Since this element needed to house reception and a work station, operated by one person; it needed to be small, efficient and provide different levels of transparency to maximize screening of the clothing racks and allow for views out and through the space. In addition, a complimentary curvilinear wall feature completes the functional needs of the space by housing storage areas and a changing room. The final product utilizes a simple palette of sustainable materials in warm wood and earth tones framed within each of these white curvilinear elements, creating a new kind of dry-cleaning experience.

Refurbishment Viaduct Arches To A Commercial Spaces | Zurich | EM2N

In this project we examine two essential questions: How can an infrastructure element that is a protected monument be programmed and made part of the urban system? In an era with an increasing amount of regulations (energy, hygiene, fire protection etc.) and greater demands for comfort, how can low-budget projects be carried out?
The viaduct is more than just a bridge. Like a mountain chain erected by human hand it appears in the town with a scale derived from the landscape and topography. The infrastructure element, originally used as a railway line, is to form a linear park that will be part of a culture, work and leisure mile.
This reprogramming of the viaduct initiates two decisive urban impulses: a spatial barrier becomes a linking structure, and the outdoor spaces bordering it are upgraded. The viaduct becomes a large-scale connecting machine and a linear building. We view this ambivalence as a fundamental quality and use it as the architectural leitmotiv to symbiotically connect the new uses with the viaduct structure. The characteristic Cyclopean masonry here forms the central atmospheric element.
The new structures are deliberately restrained so as to emphasise the existing arches.In fitting-out the interiors the future users can choose from a kit of elements or design the spaces themselves.....more

Messe Frankfurt Press Center | Frankfurt Germany | Matteo Thun

The restructuring of an old space right down to the finest detail. A definite functional layout to fit every imaginable trade fair event. Custom-designed stations, different intensities of light, warm natural finishes and under-skin high-tech connectivity. Plus a "vertical garden" to complete the scene. ....more
Client: Messe Frankfurt Venue GmbH & Co. KG
Services provided: Restructuring, Interior design, Lighting
Total building area: 970 m2
Start date: 2007
End date: 2008
Phase: Completed

Laundrette Interior Design | Suds Laundrette | Plus Architecture

Situated on the ground floor of Society, the Suds Laundrette could easily be mistaken for a funky Chapel St bar. The aim for Suds was to turn a mundane task into a fun and unique experience through design.

Taking its inspiration from the Alice in Wonderland checkerboard, the central area of the laundrette is clad in fabricated grass. Circular cut-outs in the walls reflect the bubbles of washing suds and double as seating. While wood inspired vinyl is used for both functionality and aesthetics.This interesting combination of materials generates a contrast with the washing machines, enhanced by the suspended ceiling, to create a unique and stimulating environment.....more

Flight Experience Project, MegaBox | WKDA

The New Zealand base ‘Flight Experience’ was seeking for a shop design to revamp their corporate image as a fun-seeking and educational flight simulation provider. Flight Experience offers authentic flight simulation experience and the client wanted to mix this with a theme park-like environment. Our design sought to evoke the shape and streamlines of ‘wings’ and ‘fuselages’. The design includes many playful references to e.g. a runway, fuselage windows, aluminum claddings and curvatures of a fuselage....more

VAKKO FASHION CENTER Istanbul, Turkey Designed By REX

CLIENTS Vakko and Power Media
PROGRAM Headquarters for a Turkish fashion house—including offices, showrooms, conference rooms, auditorium, museum, and dining hall—as well as the television studios, radio production facilities, and screening rooms of its media sister-company
AREA 5,400 m² (58,000 sf) and 3,700 m² (40,000 sf)
COST Confidential
STATUS Completed 2010
ARCHITECT REX

When Caltech’s senior administration suddenly changed, REX’s design for the Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology was canceled. Two months later, the CEO of Vakko (Turkey’s pre-eminent fashion house) and Power Media (Turkey’s equivalent of MTV) approached REX with plans to design and construct a new headquarters by the year’s end using an unfinished, abandoned hotel. The requested timetable would normally have been absurd. However, the unfinished building fortuitously had the same plan dimension, floor-to-floor height, and servicing concept as the Annenberg Center’s “Ring” (the so-called “Sheep”).

By adapting the Construction Documents produced for the Annenberg Center to the abandoned concrete hotel skeleton, construction on the perimeter office block commenced only four days after Vakko/Power first approached REX. This adaptive re-use opened an eight-week window during which the more unique portions of the program could be designed simultaneous to construction. Speed became the design’s most significant parameter.

Whereas the Annenberg Center’s Ring was a fragile, post-tensioned concrete structure which depended upon the robust, steel interior for support, Vakko/Power’s existing Ring is painfully over-designed, the byproduct of numerous, deadly earthquakes in Turkey.

The design problem is therefore reversed: Vakko/Power’s unique interior must remain detached so as not to disrupt the structural integrity and waterproofing of the in situ skeleton. Dubbed the “Showcase,” this unique interior houses the auditorium, showrooms, meeting rooms, and executive offices, as well as all vertical circulation and restrooms...more

Public Restroom Interior By Fabiane Giestas

Fabiane Giestas of Arquiteta Urbanista, Brazil sent us the following:

Public bathrooms demand a strong identity since, in general, they belong to places with an atmosphere very connected to design, as restaurants, shoppings and clubs. My objective was to be original and innovation, guaranteeing physical and mental interaction in the visitor (and user). The combination of the colors and forms, the use of simple materials used of innovative form and the dramatical illumination characterize the environment. One sofa style Luis XV, inherited of family and duly remodeled, complements the proposal of being a unforgettable place.