Catja de Haas
Architects

A short film takes view­ers through the ​‘Togeth­er We Care’ instal­la­tion. More than 100 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in this project. Refugee and non-refugee fam­i­lies, stu­dents and pro­fes­sion­als from dif­fer­ent coun­tries made dolls’ hous­es that tell their sto­ries of home, com­mu­ni­ty and belong­ing. By link­ing the dolls’ hous­es with ropes and ramps and lad­ders the project aims to explore the mean­ing of home and com­mu­ni­ty after a year of COVID19 restric­tions and the iso­la­tion these caused, while high­light­ing the expe­ri­ence of being a refugee in an attempt to cre­ate sol­i­dar­i­ty and under­stand­ing across the polit­i­cal and socio-eco­nom­ic divide.

To see the film before 20^th June 2021, click this link.

For more infor­ma­tion about the Giant Dolls’ House project click this link.

We cre­at­ed this com­mu­ni­ty arts ini­tia­tive to raise aware­ness of home­less­ness and the refugee cri­sis, and with col­lab­o­ra­tion with Oxfam on projects since 2019. The project asks its par­tic­i­pants to cre­ate a minia­ture room­scape in a box. The dio­ra­mas are then dis­played en masse as an instal­la­tion, linked by ropes, lad­ders and ramps in a colour­ful card­board maze that mus­es on the mean­ing of home.

To read the full arti­cle click here.

To get involved this year vis­it www​.giant​doll​shouse​.org and sub­mit your room­scape in a box, as part of Refugee Week (14 to 20 June), the dead­line for sub­mis­sions has been extend­ed to 14^th June 2021.

The fea­ture explores build­ing a house with inno­v­a­tive mate­ri­als such as cross-lam­i­nat­ed tim­ber (CLT) and nat­ur­al struc­tur­al insu­lat­ed pan­els (NSIPs) and how this sat­is­fies a demand for more sus­tain­able con­struc­tion that’s not lim­it­ed by the design con­straints of tra­di­tion­al wood­en forms. Illus­trat­ing how this ver­sa­tile mate­r­i­al can be strik­ing­ly con­tem­po­rary, envi­ron­men­tal­ly pro­gres­sive and cost-effective.

Ideas — For small and medi­um stations

The sta­tion and sta­tion approach are com­bined in a green pedes­tri­an bridge that cross­es the rail­way line cre­at­ing a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den close to the town. The bridge will serve three func­tions: it will link the sta­tion to the towns’ cen­tre (many sta­tions in small towns are out­side of the cen­tre). It makes cross­ing the rail­way line safe for pedes­tri­ans and it allows wildlife and flow­ers to cross.

More infor­ma­tion can be seen here.

Here is a link to the full arti­cle but you will need an AJ subscription.

The base­ment of this Lon­don ter­raced house has been re-mod­elled to cre­ate a light, airy office for the architect’s prac­tice, com­plete with its own direct entrance. The inter­nal stairs down to the Work­space Con­ver­sion have been removed and one of the spine walls has been opened-up leav­ing the struc­ture exposed. Full sto­ry can be seen here.

This south Lon­don house has under­gone a com­plete trans­for­ma­tion, whilst retain­ing and restor­ing orig­i­nal features.

Two small bed­rooms on the top floor are sep­a­rat­ed with a cur­tain and have both a small loft room to retreat into. This reduces the height-per­cep­tion of the house and reduces the load on the foun­da­tion. A small dormer hous­es a new small room with views over the city and under the eaves a sec­ond bed­room is locat­ed. The void space is used to hang net­ting to cre­ate hammocks. 

The rafters in the cathe­dral ceil­ing have been left exposed and have been painted.

More images and infor­ma­tion here.

Hid­den Home­less­ness Com­pe­ti­tion on the Colan­der Website.

Proud to be part of the win­ning team for this impor­tant com­pe­ti­tion. Our pro­pos­al: ​‘Good Night’, com­bined a hotel and hos­tel, as a social entre­pre­neur­ship project. Good­night was writ­ten in the para­pet of the pro­posed build­ing: wish­ing all in the build­ing as well as all in the city a good night. We wish each oth­er a good night, every night, a pledge, or reminder that sleep­ing safe­ly is impor­tant: some­thing we should all work towards achiev­ing for all. 

Office Ten
The Colan­der Web­site
AJ cov­er­age

Cat­ja de Haas Archi­tects Col­lab­o­rat­ed with Rosie Bichard; Anders Luhr and Eri­ka Suzu­ki from OfficeTen. Sophie Walk­er worked on the project for Cat­ja de Haas Architects.

Check out the Giant Dolls’ house website.

the stairs move, and form a dec­o­ra­tive object in the room. This was a study for steps in the Toolk­it. They were, how­ev­er, aban­doned in favour of a sim­ple ladder.