Tag Archives: Steel

Colorado architecture students build micro cabins clad in sheets of hot-rolled steel

Students at the University of Colorado Denver have designed and built a series of rustic dwellings for a base camp operated by an outdoor education program.

Called COBS Year-Round Micro Cabins, the project consists of seven insulated dwellings, each containing 200 square feet (19 square metres) of interior space and a 100-square-foot deck (nine square metres). Located deep within a pine forest, the shelters are accessed via a narrow dirt road.

The rugged structures were built for a base camp operated by the Colorado Outward Bound School (COBS), a nonprofit organisation focused on wilderness education.

The camp is situated in Leadville, a small Colorado town located 10,150 feet above sea level (3,093 metres).

“The orientation and articulation of each of the seven cabins react individually to the immediate site conditions present in the landscape,” the team said. “No two cabins are alike.”

The shelters were created by 28 students in the Colorado Building Workshop, a design-build programme in the architecture school at the University of Colorado Denver. The programme constructed 14 similar cabins for the COBS camp in 2015.

The new structures are skinned with sheets of hot-rolled steel, which form a low-maintenance rainscreen. Cedar-clad porches were carved out of the main rectangular mass.

The buildings are elevated off the ground by short metal columns with concretefootings. The composition is meant to “blend with the pine forest, minimising the visual impact”, while also reducing each structure’s footprint.

Source: www.dezeen.com

Cun-Design converts Beijing house into film studio with weathering steel and glass extensions

Chinese firm Cun-Design has transformed a typical suburban house in Beijing into a film production studio featuring glass and pre-rusted steel extensions.

Cun-Design was asked to oversee the refurbishment of the existing property in the Chinese capital’s Tongzhou District to create a new workspace for Blue Moon Films.

The detached house located on the bank of the Wen-Yu River in the east of the city was only built in the 1990s, but had already fallen into a state of disrepair.

The architects recognised that the house’s facades and structural framework could be retained and adapted, but sought to completely transform the cramped interior to give it a more modern feel.

“Our first impression on this house is that it is out of tune with today’s people and their way of living,” said Cun-Design. “We maintained its original structure during the renovation and formed a contrasting boundary between old and new within the project.”

The refurbishment began with the removal of all non-structural internal walls, resulting in more open and flexible spaces. Doors and windows were also removed to create uninterrupted circulation throughout the building.