Industrial/Apartment Building Case Studies

Grey Momentum Office by TEA (Stockholm City, Sweden)

The metal frame and exterior brick wall of this converted train depot were kept entirely intact. The central core was placed within the building as a foreign entity but integrates itself into the building with the use of a metal skin and vertical steel beams to pay homage to the beam structure overhead.

Workshop Building Schoten by Loos Architects (Schoten,Belgium)

Workshop Building Schoten is split into a head, tail, and body, like snake. Complex program areas, like a cafeteria, concierge apartment, and offices are located in the head. Storage spaces and the workshop are located in the body and tail. Each area receives a unique material treatment. The workshop has a smooth, polished floor, and a stark, plain corrugated metal roof. The head also includes simple uses of material however, warm materials like wood can be found at the apartment balcony.

Krauss Maffei Management and Operating Center by casaPublica (Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico)

A large open floor for heavy machinery is surrounded by slick offices in this building. Though similar in structure and material as the Workshop building in Schoten, casaPublica painted the metal and added plants as well as interesting uses of wood to take off the industrial edge. Each office and conference room has it's own identity. One room is surrounded by unfinished plywood, another by painted drywall, and some with painted corrugated metal.

Low-Energy MZ House by Calderon Folch Sarsanedas Architects (Barcelona, Spain)

The rehabilitation of this 1918 house resulted in a ten-fold reduction in energy consumption (17 kWh/year from 171 kWh/year). The images don't give away much about the immediate surroundings but the house looks like is sits on a narrow lot between two larger buildings. A private courtyard, presumably to the rear, is framed by the vertical wood boards of the house and brick from the surrounding building. Glass spans the entire gap, at the human level, which could allow sunlight to warm the concrete floor throughout the day. Light-colored wood, and bright white walls throughout the interior create a light, airy feeling.

Mejiro House by MDS CO. LTD (Tokyo, Japan)

Privacy is the name of the game for this Japanese house. The front facade is void of windows above the ground level. A large, concrete wall carves out an open porch below ground level and up to the street given the residents an extreme amount of privacy. Meticulously manicured bushes line the top of the wall giving the illusion of a closed in front yard. Concrete remains the backdrop inside for wood floors, black-painted stairs, and strategically placed LED lighting.

Slip House by Carl Turner Architects (London)

Sustainable housing built on a relatively small and narrow lot. The house will take advantage of PVs, a solar assisted ground source heat pump, a green roof, rain water harvester, as well as mechanical ventilation.