Asia de Cuba at London, UK

At the entrance to the Rum Bar - one of the few overt references to Cuban culture - guests find themselves before a series of tall, slender steel tables with just enough room on the surface for a couple of drinks. These were custom designed for the project by Starck, as were the upholstered banquettes in the restaurant, set against white walls.

Neutral elements such as a maple floor and Scandinavian-style laminate chairs, featuring back slipcovers with insets of Italian lace, are offset by the more dramatic presence of rows of massive columns, each of displaying a different motif.

More than mere static and functional supports, these columns become a central element of the design. Shelves running the perimeter are overflowing with black and white photographs, flowerpots filled with plants or fresh flowers, or books on geography and history. Others may be upholstered in quilted cotton or clad in iridescent silk. One is simply covered in blackboard paint for customers to freely draw on.

Unadorned hanging light bulbs are a simple lighting solution which serves as a counterpoint to the visually-heavy volume of the columns.

The overall atmosphere is unique and somewhat surreal, but not fixed: in adhering to the desire to be able to change the look of this space on a regular basis, the open design scheme is intended to provide endless options for rearranging and restructuring.

Cafe Bravo at Berlin, Germany

This construction of shimmering greenish-silver, mirrored glass and highly polished steel lies in contrast to the classicist facades lining the courtyard. The steel skeleton was prefabricated off-site and lifted in by crane.

The structure’s visual effects are stunning: day or night, the facade reflects its surroundings, its glass melting and blending into the steel. The composition, hastily sketched by the artist and faxed to Berlin, is a work of art in itself, knowing how to confuse, distract and delight the senses with distorted, mirrored, refracted images.

Although the café occupies only 87 meter square of the total usable surface space of 1,485 meter square - leaving the rest for cultural activities- its unique composition is the focal point of the entire project. It consists of two glazed square cubes set at an angle against each other and projecting into the courtyard. The glazed, floor-to-ceiling doors with automatic controls are integrated seamlessly into the design. The roof of the cubes is also glass, giving patrons the sensation of sitting out in the courtyard, without having to endure the inconvenience of cold weather. Mirrors entirely cove the rear concrete wall, ingeniously reflecting the courtyard back toward the café.

The smooth concrete floor and exposed concrete late-a walls are a discreet, understated contrast to the facades

Bar-Restaurant L'Arca at Follonica, Italy

Just past the entrance door, with its two round windows like portholes, is the bar area. Here, two tapered pilasters covered in stainless steel contrasts with the cherry wood panels that line the walls. Sheets of stainless steel mesh line the bar, behind which are simple ground glass shelves and back-lit wooden panels.

A row of round lights embedded in the floor leads to the dining room, which is opened up to include an outdoor terrace in the warmer months. The choice of materials corresponds to their usage and role. Hence the walls are lined with wood to absorb sound in the space set aside for live music. Stainless steel is used in the dining room for its resistance to daily use. Particular care has been taken with the lighting. The only sources of light in the bar are two delicate rows of small, evenly-spaced round lights in the wood panelling and a number of round lights embedded into the ceiling and floor. In the concert area a mixture of bright halogen lighting and hanging lamps creates a unique atmosphere. In the dining room, the tables are illuminated by a large custom- made lamp with an imaginative motif recalling either a mass of cumulous clouds or a coral reef. In the bathroom, a cluster of tiny lights set into a blue ceiling are reflected on the surrounding walls, creating the effect of a starry sky.

LoftCube on rooftop

The spot chosen for the prototype. a former cold-storage depot overlooking the Spree River and now used as record company offices, is typical of many industrial sites - large expanses of flat roof going to waste. Aisslinger envisions the concept as functioning like an upscale hotel, a temporary home from home where like-minded people can spend short periods of time ‘congregating in rooftop communities - floating on top of the city. yet being where the action is’. A LoftCube would cost around ?55,000, but the price of a suitable site could be far higher.

The master bedroom, with its combination of transparent and translucent wall panels

Drawing on earlier housing concepts such as Pierre Botschi’s 1973 moulded GRP ‘mobile house’. The LoftCube has a lightweight construction to maximise the number of sites for which it is suited. A structure of Bankirai wood is infilled with honeycomb panels, coated with a white laminate and specially developed plastic sheets; inside extensive use has been made of Conan to create a series of movable, transformable function panels. This means that the bath and kitchen share a tap, which can be swung between the two zones. The same goes for the shower and plant basin that separate the bathing and living areas. In this way, Aisslinger ensures that the LoftCube’s living spaces appear much larger than they are, in keeping with the penthouse’s traditional emphasis on space. Wall panels are constructed from translucent acrylic glass.

Interior view of the kitchen and bathroom showing the transformable function panels that divide the living spaces

The association of the high life with high achievement is clear, if slightly tongue in cheek, yet the concept makes a more serious point about ‘flying buildings’, temporary architecture and transportability. The LoftCube, it is mooted, could be transported to its perch by freight helicopter (bringing to mind the iconic image of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome suspended beneath a Sikorsky S-55) or via a crane. The idea of a private rooftop society is also paradoxical, suggesting people who seek to remove themselves from the real world at street level, a development of the science fiction device of the socially layered city where height and security are inextricably linked.

Paris-based Agence Jouin Manku took on its first large-scale integrated architectural and interior design commission in 2003, when YTL Design Group from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, invited it to design the residence of a Malaysian power family.

Completed in the latter part of 2008, the residence is the ultimate expression of the taste, influence and industrial-scale capabilities of the prominent family whose entrepreneurial activities have shaped Kuala Lumpur ’s skyline.

Three generations of the family inhabit the 3,000 square-meter residence designed to accommodate both private and public functions.

The building includes nine bedrooms, two family rooms, a family kitchen and a private dining area, a family library, a game room, a study, a public reception area, a formal dining room, a ballroom, chapel, 21 bathrooms, a swimming pool, two guest suites plus indoor private and guest parking.

The initial sketches exploring the owners’ usage requirements reveal resemblances to the boring stacked-boxes look still so ubiquitous in residential architecture. And while traces of the “heaped trailers” syndrome remain in the finished building, this is not the Jetsons, neither are we looking at EPCOT, Tomorrowland or the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

We are in the lush vegetation of a posh Kuala Lumpur residential area, and in spite of the boxiness of the structure, an elegant circular softness manages to permeate the sightlines and key details of the building, making it an agreeable part of its landscape.

Inside, prominent examples of this curvilinear elegance include the amazing staircases resembling the inside of a shell when viewed from above, and the round ballroom chandelier of 13,000 custom-designed undulating petals of unglazed cast porcelain biscuit.

The curved walls both inside and out have a functional purpose of providing privacy and enclosing each function gently in its own space. The overall sweeping feel inside the spaces invites the viewer in and creates soft, arching vistas.

The concept consists of three layers: the base for public functions, the ring for guests and the private house for the family.

The inside of the magnificent residence is gorgeous with its high ceilings, large windows and abundance of light. White color and natural wood are dominant elements but they allow the view from the vast, mostly retractable, windows to remain the main visual attraction.

The residence is also a wonderful study of contrasts between inside and outside, private and public, traditional and ultra modern, man-made and natural.

YTL Design Group of Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia , was the architect of record. The Agence Jouin Manku design team included Patrick Jouin, Sanjit Manku, Yann Brossier (architect), Richard Perron (designer). Officina del Paesaggio from Lugano , Switzerland was in charge of the landscape design, and L’Observatoire, New York , USA handled the lighting.

Zholtovsky House

It features an unusual mixture of basic classical elements and the Art-Deco forms found in this area and uniquely incorporates them into a large corner building. The facade’s basic architectural pattern is unpretentious. The ground level, clad in stone and with semi-basement and plinth cornice, is followed by a one-storey piano nobile with cross windows and light and dark brickwork. An attic level rises above the building with a blind wall. A glazed rotunda with pergolas serves as a crowning finish.

During the next century, mainly in the limestone region of northern France called the Paris Basin, five crucial inventions set the stage for all the architecture of the next three centuries. Firstly, shafts which had once been thick enough to support the load over them were transformed into decoration by being made incredibly thin (as at the Abbey of Braine). Like the rib-vaulted ceiling, the whole wall was now turning into a bundle of energy rather than mass. Secondly, thinness was emphasized by making buildings taller. Separated from their supporting role, these elegant ribs and shafts transformed the upper part of the interior into a suspended canopy. These churches were no longer safe citadels or even symbols of Paradise; the people of the 12th century held to a mystic faith that the church was not just like Heaven, it actually was God’s promised world. Thus the vault was suspended from His realm, while the emaciated shafts became the tassels that hung from the corners of this Holy Tabernacle. No wonder the master mason, who was capable of creating this Paradise on earth, was so highly regarded.

The third innovation was stained glass. By replacing the painted wall with glass, previously inert matter became translucent. Although the glass was dark, and the weak light shed little illumination inside, it completely transformed the walls. The light seemed to come from within the very core of the stone, making it glow as though in proof that the church was the Celestial City.
As the mass of the inner wall surfaces was obliterated, the solidity of the outside was also broken up. The buttress, which had given additional support to the wall where it was most needed, was moved away to the perimeter of the building, and arches set between the two to transmit the loads to the outside. By moving the massive stonework needed to support the roof away from the windows, the amount of stone around the thinning shafts that hung from the vaults could be reduced and vast windows installed.

Tracery, first invented at Rheims around 1220, finally turned the window itself into another surface pattern. The combination of the canopied vaults, the thin elements ranging over the surface, the stained glass set in, the traceried windows and the flying buttresses, had the effect of dematerializing the masonry so the entire building appeared to belong to another mystic universe. All these inventions stretched technical expertise to the limits, and compelled masons to improve their skills greatly.

Klein Penthouse (unbuilt) LOT-EK

The firm’s Klein Penthouse was an unbuilt concept for a photographer with a site in New York’s Meat Packing District. Set atop the large flat expanse of a relatively low-rise building, the project again took the shipping container as the central architectural element. On this occasion, however, rather than inserting the container into an existing building, the rooftop was to be reconfigured to reflect the container’s decidedly nonstatic origins.

The roofscape was to be laid out with six lanes, mimicking a parking lot. White kerbs separated each lane, and the roofing membrane was composed of black outdoor rubber granules. Three irregularly spaced zones - one each of grass, pebbles and water - formed the landscaping, while the accommodation took the shape of an 8 meters (26 foot) long truck container connected directly to the photographer’s studio on the floor below.

Main View of Moscow Clubhouse

It includes offices for personnel, technical services for the shooting range, public areas, shops and a restaurant.

Detail Porch of Moscow Clubhouse

Three blocks are brought together on one side by an open terrace. Glazed passageways connect the bright-red wooden structures with one another. The visually uniform facade of the divergently styled buildings underscores the functional unity of the wooden structures. The middle section, the center of the obtusely-angled complex, is defined by a covered veranda which can be reached by an open stairway.