Articles by Daniel Tapia

SAV Architecture Design, a London, Mumbai, and Goa-based interior and architectural design studio has shaped the new Mumbai based workplace interiors for AICL communications, a branding consultancy that confluences strategy content, design, and delivery. The initial brief and ideas for the new AICL workplace design were discussed collaboratively with the clients, with a lot of emphasis on understanding the future of working environments, especially in the creative industry. Since creative methods have a lot of ‘fuzzy thinking’ we conceptualized this thought process into a mix of ‘fuzzy spaces’ for the new AICL workplace. By using the office’s large open plan style layout, we create a series of overlapping programs alternating between living, work and landscape spaces.

“I need solitude. I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon—to behold and commune with something grander than man. Their mere distance and unprofanedness is an infinite encouragement. It is with infinite yearning and aspiration that I seek solitude, more and more resolved and strong; but with a certain weakness that i seek society ever.” – Henry David Thoreau, journal, 14 august 1854. Edifice: “a building, especially an imposing one.” Or as “a complex system of beliefs.”

Located on the outskirts of Montevideo Uruguay, this house designed by “Bercetche Estudio” shows great respect for the environment and, through a nice space distribution, takes advantage of it. Two opaque volumes separated from each other generates a permeable “in-between” that gives rise to all the common activities of the house (Hall, living-room, dining-room, and kitchen) and connect it with the different boundaries of the land where it was built: to the front the main street of medium traffic, to the right a children’s package, to the left a single-family house and to the bottom a glen with a leafy vegetation. 

Home is one of the pillars of civilization. Еconomy and culture develop and private life comes into existence at the very moment when a person starts to restrict and conceptualize space by separating its functions. Home walls act as a protective shell against the outside world of natural chaos.

Located in Prince George, the College of New Caledonia ‘Heavy Mechanical Trades Training Facility’ offers young people across the region an elegant LEED Gold educational building that responds to the unique demands of Northern BC. A re-interpretation of the local industrial typology and the program’s heavy equipment guides its architectural expression. The ‘Heavy Mechanical Trades Training Facility’ is the newest addition to the College of New Caledonia’s main campus in Prince George, BC. The project supports the college’s mission to provide access to lifelong learning for the communities throughout the region and to facilitate the achievement of diverse personal educational goals.

The atelier for the Polish artist Monika Sosnowska outlines the maximum volume allowed on the site, offering the artist a generous light-drenched space for undistracted experimentation. ARCHITECTURE CLUB designed two complementary volumes: a spacious concrete and glass studio and wooden storage shed. The concrete 5 x 12m frame of the studio spans over 12m, capturing northern and southern light through fully glazed facades. The rough texture of the concrete, cast against timber planks, echoes wooden sheds once characteristic for this neighborhood and its tangible presence is a perfect backdrop for the sculptures. 

Estúdio Chão has been invited to conceive and imagine an urban occupation for the Conexidade occupation in Praça XV square, famous for its cultural heritage in the center of Rio de Janeiro. The square was occupied throughout a weekend by an intense program of cultural and educational activities in the fields of art, sport, and technology. The occupation, conceived in close collaboration with architecture, became a festival in which public space and urban culture served as a nexus for programming.

The Golondrinas 34 house was designed with the intention of incorporating the interior public areas with the gardens that provide lighting, cross-ventilation and visuals. The sobriety of colours and the use of few materials reflect a refined design, characterizing the project while letting the users and the vegetation give life to the house.