Tag Archives: apartment building

This prefabricated steel residence is built from a single Quonset hut to find community through modularity

Posted on by

The Caterpillar is a 192-foot-long, 46-foot-wide modular residence designed and built from a Quonset hut that features a compact and inhabitable cube in the center of each unit for services such as a bathroom, shower, and kitchen.

In the United States, Quonset huts were introduced in the years following World War I. Based on the earlier Nissen hut, another type of prefabricated steel structure designed by the United Kingdom for military use, Quonset huts were designated for primary use by the U.S. Navy. Chosen for its lightweight profile, the Quonset Hut is an all-purpose building that can be shipped anywhere and assembled without skilled labor.

Today, in Detroit’s Core City neighborhood, real estate development company Prince Concepts, teamed with architect Ishtiaq Rafiuddin and landscape architect Julie Bargmann to turn the Quonset hut into a 9,000sf sculpture with six residences and two live-and-work spaces.

Following True North, the neighborhood’s first live-and-work communal space, the team of architects and developers hoped to merge that same sense of community into a single Quonset hut. Dividing the lengthy residential complex into eight units, each live-and-work space features 23-foot tall ceilings that are lined with clerestory windows and a ‘Jetsons’ style genesis chamber where residents can “transform from ‘just barely awake’ to ‘ready for action,’” as the architects describe.

Constructed from unstained, polished wood, the genesis chamber is positioned neatly in the center of each unit and brings a railroad-style flow to each unit. Separating the bedroom from the kitchen and dining area, the genesis chamber contains all the services available to each unit, including the bathroom, shower, and kitchen. From the kitchen, residents pass through the bathroom to get to the main bedroom and vice versa.

Finding inspiration everywhere from music notes on a piece of sheet music to a UFO crash landing in the forest, the team of architects behind Caterpillar set out to create a type of communal sanctuary in Core City’s urban woodland, where over 150 trees call home.

Caterpillar homes in on porch culture to outfit its exterior with the same sense of openness that floods the inside of each residential unit. From windows to doors, Caterpillar features 36 different openings that bring in pools of natural light indoors during the day and emanate a golden glow from the outside come dark.

Designers: Undecorated, Studio Detroit, Prince Concepts, D.I.R.T. Studio, and SteelMaster

The inhabitable center cube outfits the home with services such as a bathroom, shower, and kitchen. 

The curved walls evoke a similar open layout seen in spiritual dome buildings. 

Designed in railroad style, the genesis chamber divides the home into two different living areas. 

The bathroom takes on a minimalist personality to blend with the unit’s open layout.

Skylights and clerestory windows bring in pools of natural light throughout each unit. 

Each unit is split into its own half-circle splice with 36 different openings lining the facades of Caterpillar. 

The post This prefabricated steel residence is built from a single Quonset hut to find community through modularity first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Mars-inspired multipurpose building defies conventional architecture to ignite our imagination!

Posted on by

Seoul-based architecture studio Moon Hoon is known for designing whimsical and geometric buildings that take on unexpected angled roofs and contrasting color schemes. When a client asked him to create a residence that defied all traditional architecture conventions, Moon Hoon turned to outer space for inspiration. Mars is a multipurpose structure located in Hwaseong, South Korea that comprises three geometric blocks stacked on top of one another, almost appearing like a honeycomb gone wonky.

Mars is situated in the new urban development of Hwaseong, where its surrounding environment is still relatively vacant and flat, evoking a similar landscape to that of the Big Red Planet. The three slabs were initially conceptualized as a long mobile home, but the plans ultimately matured to form three independent floors stacked together like a conjoined 3D puzzle. Mars wears a brass frame that borders modernist glass panels and Mondrian-esque steel beams.

Inside Mars, Moon Hoon aimed to provide an illusory spatial experience where the floors were folded and the roofs formed angles to test the resident’s sense of gravity. Stacked together, each of the three floor provides different functions, creating “a small and symbolic universe where spaceships and planets mingle haphazardly, evoking some kind of strange universe,” as Moon Hoon describes it.

The first floor, a rectangular and open-air space, is devoted to commercial use for anyone to rent out and design as they like. Right above the first geometric block, two apartment spaces fill out the second floor, one offering three bedrooms while the other comes as a one-bedroom living space. The top floor, occupied by the clients behind Mars’s conception, is the structure’s loft. There, its residents can enjoy total flexibility in a two-bedroom penthouse with an observatory-like sphere that juts out from one of Mars’s side facades, resembling a purposely misplaced, miniature Pantheon roof or Boulle’s Sphere, further enlightening the structure’s ode to planetary design. 

Designer: Moon Hoon

When looked at head-on, Mars resembles a honeycomb gone purposefully awry.

The side facade features a Pantheon-like sphere that houses the loft’s living room.

Inside, Moon Hoon designed Mars to mimic a “strange universe” fit for spaceships and planets alike.

The underside of the structure’s folded and angled floors form the roofs of the floors beneath, creating an illusory spatial experience.

Sliding wooden doors open each floor up to flexibility and open-air living spaces.

The top floor is occupied by the clients behind the structure’s conception, where two bedrooms and various living spaces converge.

The Pantheon-like sphere resembles an observatory and enhances the structure’s tribute to planetary design.

Bentley Residences, the world’s first high-rise by the luxury automaker will rise over Miami in 2026!

Posted on by

In Miami, marques like Porsche, Pininfarina, and Aston Martin have turned to high-rise, luxury apartment complexes to tag with their brand names. Punctuating the beaches of Miami throughout their Sunny Isles and Brickell neighborhoods, the upscale automakers constructed apartment buildings to reflect the luxe experiences that come with owning one of their cars. The latest marque to bring their real-estate venture to the beaches of North Miami, Bentley has launched plans for their own apartment high-rise, Bentley Residences which will shimmer to completion in 2026.

Bentley Residences will soar to almost 750 feet over the dunes of Miami’s Sunny Isles district, nearby the 132-unit Porche Design Tower. Sieger Suarez Architects and Dezer Development will work with Bentley to design and build the 200+ apartments that will fill up Bentley Residences. Having previously worked with Porsche to design the Porsche Design Tower, the collaboration between Sieger Suarez Architects and Dezer Development ensures the plans for Bentley Residences are in safe hands. Perhaps the most exciting part of the plan is that each residence comes equipped with its very own multi-car garage, which funnels through the apartment building’s main, exclusive car elevator system.

In addition to the high-rise car elevator, each apartment will also welcome residents with a private balcony and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook Miami’s north shores and bay, along with a sunken pool, and sauna. The design of each residence will prioritize seamless indoor-outdoor living ideal for the summer climate of Miami. Residents of Bentley’s high-rise can also enjoy the building’s many lavish amenities: a whiskey bar, cigar lounge, restaurant, cinema, gym, pool and spa, private beach with cabanas, as well as the manicured grounds and gardens. The architects will begin construction as soon as 2023 with plans for triangular windows that will form Bentley’s famed diamond icon, allowing the sun to hit each facade and make the building shimmer with light.

Designers: Bentley, Sieger Suarez Architects, and Dezer Development

The same luxe experience that comes with owning one of Bentley’s Continental GT Speeds will be felt inside Bentley Residences.

With a slick, curved frame and seamless finishes, Bentley’s Continental GT Speed mimics the exterior of Bentley Residences.

Inside, Bentley’s close attention to details can be felt and seen throughout.

The diamond finishes and chrome accents shimmer on Bentley’s Continental GT Speed.