New Architecture: House I by Japanese Architect Hiroyuki Shinozaki

Eight ribs radiate from the centre of the ceiling to the floor and divide the room into areas that create spaces for dining, studying and sleeping around the perimeter of the house.

Ambrosio De Lauro reports on a new house in Tokyo's Tochigi Prefecture by architect Hiroyuki Shinozaki. Photographs by Fumihiko Ikemoto

DESIGNED by the young Japanese architect last year, this small house is given a soaring sense of space by its ribbed roof construction which forms a great dome over the living space. The groined arches are deep enough to create a division between the open plan spaces of the house.

While the exterior is rather unprepossessing and looks like an American 1950s bungalow, the interior is unusually dramatic for a compact space. The architect used a local volcanic stone for the building's outer walls which came from a quarry near the house and supports the great roof above. The house is located in a region of mixed use with both fields and houses. The site is at the end of a blind alley but has glimpse of gardens and green meadows and neighbors can greet each other over the low stone fences that divide the houses.

Home to a family of three in Japan’s Tochigi Prefecture in Tokyo, the house is 92 square metres in floor area. "Enveloped by its surroundings, the design enhances the sense of space and makes it feel bigger while the slope of the big roof accentuates the sense of perspective,'' says Shinozaki.

The interior has the central living room at its heart with the ribbed timber vaulting curving above this open plan space. Eight ribs radiate from the centre of the ceiling to the floor and divide the room into areas that create spaces for dining, studying and sleeping around the perimeter of the house. There is also an entrance lobby and a small terrace at the rear of the building. Wooden ladders lead up to small lofts while various skylights and large, glass doors bring light through the house.

Shinozaki was born in 1978 also in Tochigi Prefecture and graduated from Kyoto Institute of Technology. Later he completed a Masters degree at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He worked for Toyo Ito Associates before establishing his own practice in 2009.

Called House I, this is the latest in a series of residences by Shinozaki named after alphabet letters. He has also designed House H and the award-winning House T.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

The entrance to House I  leads into a dramatic, vaulted central living space with a minimal kitchen located between two of the soaring ribs.

The design enhances the sense of space and makes it feel bigger while the slope of the big roof accentuates the sense of perspective,'' says the architect

Large, glass doors, plenty of windows plus skylights allow the interior to be flooded with natural light. 

Eight ribs radiate from the centre of the ceiling to the floor and divide the room into areas that create spaces for dining, studying and sleeping around the perimeter of the house.

While the exterior of the house is rather unprepossessing and looks like an American 1950s bungalow, the interior is unusually operatic for a compact space. 

Photo Essay: My Silk Road By Andreas Romagnoli

The sunset silhouette's Khiva's ancient, mud-brick fortress walls.

Travelling through the landlocked country of Uzbekistan in Central Asia, Andreas Romagnoli captures the remarkable architecture and the faces of the proud Uzbek people

WHEN I first heard the word Uzbekistan I remembered childhood fairy tales of Tamerlane and the intriguing and legendary stories about him. Folk stories are the cultural heritage of every nation but here in Central Asia the myths are particularly colourful and rich. In Uzbekistan people glorified their heroes and composed legends about them. Each historical monument is cloaked in the myths of the past. This unique and mysterious world of folk tales and stories were carefully collected and passed on from generation to generation by the Uzbek people.

Once part of the Persian Samanid and later Timurid empires, the region which today includes the Republic of Uzbekistan was conquered in the early 16th Century by nomads who spoke an Eastern Turkic language. This region became part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century and in 1924 became a republic of the Soviet Union. It became independent in 1991 and today most of Uzbekistan’s population today belong to the Uzbek ethnic group and speak the Uzbek language.

I started my journey from the modern and vibrant Tashkent and then crossed the country to the charming town of Khiva on the other side of Uzbekistan. One of my dreams was also to visit what remains of the Aral Sea with its white salt lake and its boat cemetery ~ an experience that made me realise how human beings can destroy the natural world and its resources.

My first impression of Uzbekistan is of a place where the mix between Eastern and Western culture appears balanced. The influence of the Russians in the 20th Century has altered the oriental aspect of towns such as Samarkand and Bukhara. But the Uzbeks are a proud people and have tried to keep their valuable cultural heritage preserved. Today, Uzbekistan is home to numerous monuments and artifacts of architectural and historical importance.

Tashkent is one of the biggest cities in Central Asia and is the capital of Uzbekistan. Chinese inscriptions talk about Tashkent as Yuni as far back as 262 B.C. As an oasis, Tashkent was a crossroads on one of the spice export routes located on the path of travellers transporting precious stones, gold and horses. The city still has many historic monuments including the Mausoleum of Kaffal-Shashi, Madrasah of Kukeldash, the Square of Amir Temur and the Mosque of Tila Sheyh.

Travelling to Bukhara I felt the air was saturated with the spirit of antiquity and the narrow streets of the old city suggest living in a world of folk tales and legends. The city was a commercial hub on the Silk Road route and is now known as the city of museums and dates back 2,300 years. It has more than 140 grand monuments and designs such as Kosh Madras, Poi-Kalan, the mausoleum of Ismail Samoni and the Kalyan minaret.

Khiva is one of the few cities in Uzbekistan that has managed to retain its true Eastern culture within the ancient inner city. The city was divided into two parts in the 19th Century: Ichan Kala (inner city) surrounded by high walls and the Dishan Kala (outer city). At the same time, the entire city was surrounded by several settlements and villages.

The ancient walls of the inner city are eight meters high and more than two kilometres long, covering 26 hectares in area. Like other fortresses in Central Asia, the city walls were built out of sun-baked bricks. They were destroyed several times but they were always reconstructed. The original city was rectangular in shape with four different gates.

In Samarkand, the city’s Registan is one of the most impressive squares I have ever seen, comparable to the Grand Canyon or Sistine Chapel in terms of visual power. The Registan was the heart of the ancient city and the name means Sandy place in Persian. Samarkand’s ensemble of three madrasahs or Islamic schools is a unique example of town-planning and a remarkable architectural design in the main town square. There are three madrasahs that surround the Registan: the Ulugbek Madrasah built between 1417-1420, the Sher-Dor Madrasah created from1619 -1636 and the Tilya-Kori Madrasah constructed between 1646-1660.

The Ulugbek Madrasah has an imposing portal with a lancet arch facing the square. The corners are flanked by high, well-proportioned minarets and a mosaic panel over the entrance arch is decorated by geometrical stylised ornaments. The square-shaped courtyard includes a mosque, lecture rooms and is fringed by the dormitory cells in which students lived. Originally the Ulugbek Madrasah was a two-storied building with four domed lecture rooms at the corners. The madrasah was one of the best universities in the Muslim world of the 15th Century where Ulugbek himself gave lectures and it became a great centre of secular science. 

In the 17th Century the ruler of Samarkand, Yalangtush Bakhodur ordered the construction of the Sher-Dor and Tillya-Kori madrasahs. The decoration of the madrasah is not as refined as that of the 15th Century but the harmony of large and small rooms, exquisite mosaic decor, monumentality and symmetry put the madrasahs among the best architectural monuments of Samarkand.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

 Roof lantern throwing light down into the souk selling carpets in Bukhara.

The ancient mud walls protecting old Khiva.

 The soaring brick minaret in Khiva.

Samarkand Registan, Madrasah Ulugbek

Tamerlane's mosque of Gur-emir in Samarkand.

Samarkand's Registan and the view of Shir Dar Madras.

The registan at Samarkand with a view of Shir Dar and Tilla-Kari Madras.

Old man in typical Uzbek dress and hat at the food market of Samarkand

The Blue Mosque in ancient Khiva.

Woman resting against the ancient walls in the old town of Khiva. 

Mother and son ready for a religious procession in Bukhara.

Detail of the Shah-i Zinda complex.

Detail of a mosque inside the complex of Shah-i Zinda.

Woman dressed in typical Uzbek clothes in the ancient food market of Samarkand.

Locals resting in front of a church in Khiva.

Young shepherd and his goats in central Uzbekistan.

Remains of a fortress near Bukhara.

A ship stranded in the cemetery of boats created by the Aral lake disaster.

The steps of  central Uzbekistan.

Dutch Design: Marcel Wanders' Andaz Amsterdam Hotel

The rockstar of Dutch design Marcel Wanders created a spectacular Alice in Wonderland interior for a new hotel he opened this year in his home town of Amsterdam, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento

MARCEL Wanders cuts a tall, dashing figure with his leonine mane of hair and black suit. The classicism of a white shirt and well-tailored dark suit is subverted by the odd, flared cut of his trousers, checkered white shoes and a colourful necklace of birthstones, Baccarat glass beads and pieces of meteorite and lava. When I first interviewed Wanders in Milan, he was sartorially famous for his signature necklace of large pearls that he somehow managed to make look both masculine and stylish on his six-foot, four-inch frame.

The Andaz Amsterdam Prinsegracht - Prince’s canal - was a public library and it’s 1970s exterior is not prepossessing. But inside Wanders has created an Alice in Wonderland (or rather Wanderland) world of enormous bell-like ceiling lamps, modern baroque chairs by Martin Baas, Delft-blue carpets woven with the Dutch East India Company’s world maps and corridors lined with artists’ video installations. 

A true eccentric, Wanders has always followed his own vision since his early days with the avant-garde Droog Design when he designed his infamous Knotted Chair in 1996. Wanders has kept throwing decorative bricks through the window of International Modernism and it's adherents' celebration of spare, colourless minimalism. For his company Moooi and for the world's top design houses, he has designed baroque wall-papers and washstands, embossed cutlery, out-sized pieces of classical furniture made from paper, giant lamps with flowers lining their interiors and tables and chairs covered in silky roses.

Here in Amsterdam at the Andaz Hotel, Wanders’ riotous aesthetic has been let loose yet the imaginative ebullience of the design gives the public spaces a sense of surreal cohesion. Blue and white porcelain tiles reflecting early Dutch Delft pottery line the soaring atrium beyond the hotel's entrance and an installation of delicate, hanging golden spheres suggest the country’s history of navigation and exploration.

“The building’s heritage as a former public library also informs the design of the hotel with books - both physical and deconstructed - forming the look and feel,’’ says Wanders. “The imagery of historic books about Amsterdam served as inspiration for the wallpaper and décor and offer an authentic local experience to visitors.”

Wanders' furniture is used throughout the hotel including the tall, bright-red Tulip chairs that cluster like large flowers in the lobby. The oversized bell-like lamps lined in gold with crystal chandeliers inside loom above glossy white, classic tables. Wanders also chose the mixture of books and objects that clutter surfaces to create a club-like atmosphere that feels more like a home than a hotel.

The designer created the hotel’s restaurant called Blue, where he now often dines, with a mixture of ornately carved wooden panels and a simple, celestial blue ceiling dotted with beaming spotlights. Outside in the courtyard, the Alice in Wonderland theme is taken quite literally with a wall covered in black and white tiles depicting a giant, modern Alice, a rabbit and a bottle with Drink Me written on it.

The hotel’s 122 rooms are characterised by a dreamlike mixture of white-linen covered beds topped by trompe l’oeil wallpapers depicting half of a large glimmering fish melded with a utensil like a spoon or comb. “A major theme within the overall design is the idea of ‘connected polarities’, two individual non-related elements that are stitched together to form a new logical whole,” explains Wanders. “The Amsterdam city logo is three xxx and if you look at them as embroidery stitches you can fit things together and connect them.

“On the wall of each hotel room is a giant photographic mural which takes take two unsuspecting items in this case a fish head and an object and stitches them together to create a new, surprising whole - a connected polarity. Thus fish and spoon, fish and brush, fish and vase sit harmoniously on the walls demonstrating our mission to embrace the polarities within the city and to keeping an open mind.”

Every design element in the hotel has a twist that evokes Wanders’ particular aesthetic. The bedroom's tall rectangular dressing table mirrors appear straightforward yet the addition of a neon frame adds a frisson of gas-station rawness. The winged chair by the bed could be straight from an English country house, yet the preposterously high back and phosphorescent yellow upholstery add a Daliesque strangeness.

Located in the cultural heart of Amsterdam, the hotel is a walk away from the Stedelijk, the city's modern art museum and the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh museum that reopen early next year.  Wanders would like the Andaz to become a creative meeting place and second home for both locals and travellers interested in art and design.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Portrait of designer Marcel Wanders by Annie Leibovitz

The hotel's foyer designed by Marcel Wanders with his over-sized Bell lamps,Tulip chairs and carpet woven in Delft Blue of the Dutch East India Company's maps.  

A soaring atrium rises above the foyer and is lined with Delft tiles. An installation of golden spheres represents the Dutch history of navigation.

The Bells were originally designed in 2007. They hang above tables part of the Container Table New Antiques series of 2012. 

Reflecting it's former history as a public library, the entrance to the hotel is lined in tiles depicting scenes from early books about Amsterdam

The giant photographic mural of a fish with a porcelain handle that represents Wander's theory of 'connected polarities'.

The hotel's sitting room with it's blackened Martin Baas Smoked chairs, Wanders' sofas and another Delft Blue map carpet.

One of the bedrooms with a mirror in a neon frame and Wanders' version of the Wing chair.

Wanders high-backed, bright yellow version of the classic chair.

Another photographic image of a large fish combined with one of Wanders' decorative spoons and Amsterdam's symbol of three crosses. 

Big Shadow lamps first designed by Marcel Wanders for Cappellini in 1998.

V.I.P Chair first designed in 2000 for the World Expo in Hanover. 

Designing 007: New Exhibition Opens at Melbourne Museum

Sean Connery leans agains the famous Aston Martin DB5 while filming in the Italian Alps for the Bond film Goldfinger.

James Bond’s design and style is exhibited at the spectacular show Designing 007 which first opened at London's Barbican and has now moved to the Melbourne Museum, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento

THE exhibition looks at the inside story of one of the most influential series of films in terms of style, examining works from 1962's Dr No to 2012’s Skyfall. Exploring the design and fashion of key James Bond films, the curators of the show had access to the producers film archives. Their aim was to make the show a multi-sensory experience with lots of audio-visual displays that immerse audiences in the creation and development of the films' ethos.

The show is the result of collaboration between the Barbican Centre in London and the Bond production company, EON Productions. It is guest-curated by fashion historian Bronwyn Cosgrave and the Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming. The design of the exhibition is by Ab Rogers who along with the curators had unprecedented access to EON’s production archive.

“Having looked at the contents of the extensive EON archives we wanted to thrill visitors with an insight into some of the design processes involved in the many different ways of making the Bond films,” explains Lindy Hemming, whose own work sits alongside Bond’s bespoke tailors Anthony Sinclair, Douglas Hayward and Tom Ford.

"'Bond, James Bond', from the moment Sean Connery uttered that famous name at the beginning of Dr. No, Agent 007 captured the world’s imagination," say the show's curators. "In the five decades since, the suave screen hero has not only headlined the most successful franchise in film history, he has made an indelible impact on the worlds of art, music, fashion, technology, travel, automotive design and lifestyle. Designing 007 aims to show a world of innovation, action and style with a close-up view of the world’s favourite secret agent."

The skill and technology behind the films is shown in great detail: from the tailoring and costumes to the set and production design. The exhibition includes Bond's famous Aston Martin as well as 007's gadgets and special effects. Highlights of the show are the artwork and designs for sets and storyboards by the masterful production designer Sir Ken Adam plus the dramatic costume designs by Bumble Dawson and the work of fashion designers from Giorgio Armani and Tom Ford to Hubert de Givenchy and Rifat Ozbek.

Also on display are Roger Moore’s white tuxedo from Octopussy and the spacesuit from Moonraker, Scaramanga’s golden gun from The Man With The Golden Gun, Jaws’ fearsome teeth which first appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me, gadgets from Q Branch including the attaché case given to Bond in From Russia With Love and the 1964 silver Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger which famously returned to the screen in Skyfall.

From Sean Connery to Daniel Craig, props such as guns like the Walther PPK, IDs and passports have been essential items as 007 travelled the globe in pursuit of bad guys and the Bond girls. Other highlights in the show include the Chesterfield coat and hat Connery wears in Dr. No for his first meeting with his boss M and Roger Moore's yellow ski suit and red backpack from The Spy Who Loved Me, arguably the greatest pre-credits Bond sequence ever made.

Bond's tuxedo, along with some typically glamorous dresses are used to good effect in the exhibition including a scene from the poker sequences where the film makers had Bond create his signature Martini.  

The exhibition runs until February 23 2014. Visit the Melbourne Museum website for more information: http://designing007melbourne.com/

On set Sean Connery talks to Ian Fleming who wrote all of the James Bond novels based on his experience as an undercover MI6 agent.

James Bond's suave signature suits were hand made in London's Savile Row for Sean Connery.

The most stylish and menacing of the James Bond characters, Sean Connery lights up at the gaming table in Dr No.

One of the famous scenes recreated in the Designing 007 exhibition showing the girl covered in gold paint from Goldfinger.

The exhibition is designed as a "multi-sensory" experience and shows the films along with some of the films key costumes.  

The show exhibits James Bond's Walter PPK gun and his varied ID documents.

Some of the most dramatic scenes from the films are shown as story board images created by the great Sir Ken Adam.

Another storyboard image inside Fort Knox for the film Goldfinger showing the skill and imagination of the designers.

The Austin Martin DB5 is displayed in all of it's understated glory at the exhibition.