What's better than a house with a pool? A house with a pool that's part of the structure of the house. These projects show different ways to incorporate pools and how to resolve issues of weight, moisture and leaks. See the houses below, featuring photos by photographers like Mariela Apollonio, Kent Soh y Marcello Mariana.
The showpiece of a planned new development at Edinburgh Park will be UK-artist David Mach’s first-ever building, named “Mach 1” by the project’s developers and investors, Parabola. Working with Stirling Prize-nominated architects Dixon Jones, Mach’s building will be created from over 30 shipping containers - but not in the modular, linear method to which shipping container buildings typically lend themselves. Instead its sculptural shape is meant to draw attention to the new quarter and catch the public’s eye, especially those traveling by on the nearby tram.
"The rooms are awash with sparkling candelabra, sumptuous carpets, marble columns, sculptures, and expensive artworks,” says Benedikt Hartl, co-founder of Opposite Office of Buckingham Palace. The 775-room, 79-bathroom, 828,821 square foot residence has been home to Britain’s royalty since the 1830s. And, if Opposite Office’s recent Affordable Palace proposal were to go through, could also be home to you.
Hot on the heels of its lavish breakthrough Milan store, Starbucks has opened yet another striking and innovatively-designed coffee house. However, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma's design associates an entirely different mood with the company's coffee beverages.
Starbucks Taiwan the company’s first location in the Asia Pacific, consists of 29 white shipping containers, shifted and stacked in a grid-like formation. Within the containers’ 3,444 sqft (320 sqm) of space are a variety of intimate and comfortable spaces. A drive-thru is also incorporated into the design to maximize the store’s convenience to its customers.
Shipping containers, once a darling of architectural upcycling, have received a lot of criticism recently, as architects are beginning to recognize that their perceived advantages—ready-made habitable space and structure, and an opportunity to recycle a widely available material—are based in little more than hopeful PR spin. But for one of the most prominent practices which regularly uses shipping containers in their work, LOT-EK, the attraction of these architectural ready-mades always went beyond the ecological and practical rationalizations provided by others. In this interview at the firm's New York studio, part of Vladimir Belogolovsky’s “City of Ideas” series, LOT-EK founders Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano discuss the conceptual foundations of their fascination with shipping container architecture.
From high rises to housing to kiosks and disaster relief, shipping containers have become a more common architectural tool over the past few years. Now, Canada-based company Modpool has unveiled yet another use for shipping containers—backyard swimming pools and hot tubs.
Designed to be modular and simple to install, the pools are shipped with all necessary equipment—including a UV water cleaning system built in so that only light ground prep and power and gas access are necessary before the spaces are ready to use.
