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ROC Carolus School
The first impression of the ROC Carolus building is deceptive, and deliberately so. Passers-by and visitors see a ‘crazy’ building, a fractured and playful facade, with irregularly polygonal windows breaking up the variety of shades of grey in the prepainted metal cladding that floats above a glazed ground floor. This cladding in turn has ‘fault lines’ along it, as if the whole could shatter in an instant. It takes a moment to realise that this is disguising the fact that the building in fact consists of relatively regular blocks joined by glazing. The overall assembly is largely rectilinear, but with one end curving to a point like the prow of a ship. Far from this being an example of unexplained exuberance, careful consideration has gone into making the facade, like the rest of the building, hard working and affordable.
Architect AGS Architekten & Planners Location Nijmegen - The Netherlands Company involved Euramax Coated Products Website http://www.euramax.nl -
Chatterley Valley Blue Planet Distribution Centre
If you think you know what a warehouse looks like, even a quick glimpse at the Chatterley Valley Blue Planet distribution warehouse in Newcastle-under-Lyme, North Staffordshire, will confound your expectations. Where most warehouses are rectilinear this one is sinuously curved; where most are of a single dull colour, this one is clad in stripes and different shades of green.
Architect Chetwood Architects Location Newcastle-under-Lyme - UK Company involved Tata Steel Website http://www.colorcoat-online.com -
Two Housing Blocks
The housing designed by Dubosc & Associes in Montargis, France, is certainly uncompromising. Clad entirely in metal, it eschews any of the conventional domestic touches but it does so in a manner that is refreshing and bright. The only punctuation to the neutral metallic colour comes from the front doors in a cheerful red, with large painted numbers, and sensibly generous vision panels. There is no chance here of forgetting where you live, and the sloping external staircases are both inviting and, argues Eric Dubosc, important places of social interaction. ‘People never talk on internal staircases,’ he says. ‘Here they are out of doors, so they talk and their children play together.’
Architect Dubosc & Associes Location Montargis - France