Sculptural sloping roof was added to an art museum in China to help it merge into the mountainside

Chinese architectural practice Wang Chong Studio utilized rustic stone walls, and an enchanting sloping rofe to preserve the Taihang Xinyu Art Museum, which is located alongside the Cangxi River, with the Taihang Mountains as its backdrop. The studio used recycled local stone to artfully merge the art museum with the rocky site it is located in, in China’s Henan Province.

Designer: Wang Chong Studio

The studio wanted to bring the history of the region to the limelight. It topped the art museum with a sculptural tiled roof which seems to blend perfectly with the natural landscape. In fact, it looks as if the roof is growing out of the landscape. “The transformed, rather than demolished, warehouses effectively reflect heritage, identity, and the site’s background,” said studio founder Wang Chong.  “The new building volume that surrounds it creates a hybrid method that is more effective than tabula rasa or ‘repairing the old as the old’.”

A stunning waterside courtyard with stone elements and stepped paths welcomes you to the museum and provides lovely views down the river. “Traditional Chinese landscape paintings try to describe the paths into the mountains layer by layer, which inspired us to design layers of retreats and zigzag mountaineering paths in the site adjacent to the water and back of the mountain,” said Wang. Quite interestingly, the museum has been equipped with a restaurant. It is located in the excavated portion of the hillside below the museum, with massive floor-to-ceiling windows providing attractive views of the neighboring courtyard.

The Taihang Art Museum can be accessed by a stone staircase, and it consists of a series of exhibition spaces that have been divided by rugged stone walls. The gallery spaces showcase pre-existing elements from the site. The sloping curved roof tops this space, and creates segregated spaces that have ceilings that differ in height. “The sloping roof draws inspiration from the Chinese-style large roof,” said Wang. “In ancient Chinese architecture, the large roof is described as ‘like a bird spreading its wings and a pheasant spreading its wings and flying’, as if the wings bring a light feeling.”

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This Czech Winery has a Sloping Green Roof that let’s it merge with the landscape

The Gurdau Winery in the Czech Republic is tucked away in the lush rolling landscape of beautiful fields and vineyards located outside the village of Kurdějov. It is historically known to be one of the region’s most important wine-growing site sites and has recently received a large inflow of wine tourism. Local practice Aleš Fiala studio designed a sweeping and sloping grass-topped concrete roof over the winery to subtly conceal it.

Designer: Aleš Fiala Studio

The idea behind the sweeping green roof was to help the new building subtly and seamlessly merge with its green landscape. Concrete tunnels were dug into the site to create “cultivated encounters and connections between man, wine, and landscape,” the studio said. “The landscape context is addressed in the form of a gentle curve – a wave in the landscape, a hill between hills…great care has been taken to incorporate the building into the terrain and its connection to the cultural and natural greenery,” architect Aleš Fiala said.

“Embedding the building in the terrain creates a feeling of a welcoming background and a natural blending with the place from which the wine comes,” Fiala continued. The sweeping roof and the ground meet, allowing the building to blend with a series of winding concrete walls that supports planters around a paved patio. The back of the building features massive concrete columns that form a parking and delivery area. The roof has been marked with large circular cut-outs that merge with the glazing on the ground floor, allowing the winery’s reception and tasting rooms to be filled with streaming natural light.

The front of the winery includes a large terrace that can be entered via a glazed facade, which is protected from the sun with the help of wooden slats and a sleep canopy. The basement level houses the processing area and two apartments for visitors. “The production areas are located under the terrain, while the customer areas are open to the sun through a glass facade, thus making use of passive energy,” explained Fiala. “The spaces of the wine house are changeable and conducive to social, and romantic moments as well as quiet contemplation over a glass of wine,” he concluded.

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Contemporary home in Prague incorporates a green roof, adding a speck of green to an urban dwelling

Located in the Hlubocepy district in Prague, Czech Republic is a family home alongside a wildlife corridor. Designed by RO_AR architecture studio, the home features a concrete roof topped with grass, and is intended to be a “bridge between the urban and the natural”. The home is meant to be a “clash of two geometries” and features a rectilinear form clad in thin oak slats.

Designer: RO_AR Architecture

“Urban space surrounds the site on the south and east sides. It is a chaotic and random development, often adversely affecting the value of the terrain. We designed a building that was created by the method of land deformation. The terrain was to transition smoothly from the north-west side into an artificial ‘hill’ into which the house was to be placed,” said studio founder Szymon Rozwałka.

Reminiscent of a hill, the grass-topped structure features a ground floor with an interesting carved form to accommodate a garage and an entrance sheltered by an overhanging first floor. A paved path connects the side of the house to the garden. The front of the home has a white render finish, and a oak batten cladding to provide privacy. While the back end of the home opens into the garden via fully-glazed facades.

“The home seeks to extend the natural context into the interior of the site and into the interiors. It becomes an abstract body that, through its form and scale, corresponds to the surrounding rocks in the background,” said Rozwalka. The first floor of the home features a room that expands into a small terrace, that is hidden from the surrounding properties with the help of a concrete wall. A paved patio has been placed outside the living area, and it faces a small pond.

The roof of the home is an exposed board-marked concrete ceiling from within, dotted with large skylights wherever the curves intersect. Concrete walls within the home are contrasted with wooden ceilings, staircases, black-metal frames, furniture, and fittings. The family house is a modern concrete wonder that also manages to beautifully incorporate a speck of green, and add a bit of nature to an otherwise urban dwelling.

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Japanese origami inspire the Pavillion that uses auxetics, kirigami to bring filtered sunlight into the space

When walking into a covered space, the last thing I pay attention to is the roof. I will probably look around but not really look up, unless there’s a compelling reason to do so. There are creative designers out there that are thinking of ways to apply innovative concepts and materials to not just create something beautiful but add to the aesthetics of the structure or space that it occupies. It’s also interesting to me that they bring in other techniques and practices and apply them to architecture and interior design.

Designers: Masaaki Iwamoto Laboratory, Kyushu University, Mika Araki Laboratory, Kwansei Gakuin University

The Auxetic Pavillion is one such project that will make you look up and wonder at the roof that lets natural light filter onto your space. The designers were inspired by Kirigami, the Japanese art of cutting and folding paper which is a derivative of origami. They used the idea of geometric structures called auxetics and applied them onto metal plates to be able to create a curved surface that gives off the effect of sunlight pouring through the beautiful cracks and porous surface.

Think of it as a chandelier that is not hanging but is instead built into the roof itself and instead of artificial light, you get natural sunlight pouring downwards. It’s similar to how the light filters in through the various leaves of a tree onto the ground. They used biomimetics where designers and botanists worked together to create geometric patterns with periodic incisions and then applied it to the plasticity of metal plates. The pavillion is located in the courtyard of a campus in Fukuoka, Japan.

For the first step, they applied the geometric pattern through laser cutting a 1mm thick stainless steel plate. It is then deformed manually to match the porous surfaces. When you change the cutting pattern, it can also adjust the opening rate of the panels. Aside from just looking aesthetically pleasing, the potential application of this design and process can include giving spaces better ventilation, harnessing the daylight and saving on electricity, and controlling solar gain.

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Honda announced an e-scooter with a roof so people can deliver parcels even in the rain

With a canopy that provides shelter against rain or even direct sun in some cases, the Gyro Canopy e is Honda’s revamp of its popular Gyro three-wheeled business-scooter line. The new Canopy e looks rather similar to a concept Honda debuted back at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show, but now features a much more detailed design that looks like the company’s serious about putting the vehicle into production. Notably, the Canopy e even comes with an electric powertrain, and more importantly, swappable batteries that allow delivery personnel to swiftly and easily swap out batteries instead of waiting to recharge them.

Currently exclusive to Japan (where it’s classed as a moped), the Gyro Canopy e comes with seating for one, with a cargo tray at the back. To give the rider stability, the moped sport three wheels (like a tricycle) while still maintaining a relatively slim profile that’s perfect for zipping through narrow streets and bylanes. If the rider finds themselves in a bit of a jam, the Canopy e even has a reverse gear to back out of traffic, potentially bad roads, and other sticky situations. Finally, as its name suggests, the Canopy e comes with a canopy that sprawls from the front all the way to the back. Sure, it leaves most of the sides exposed, but its profile is perfect to block out most of the rain that would hit a rider from the front as they drive forwards. The front of the canopy (or the windshield) even has a wiper to ensure perfect visibility in bad weather.

Perfect for intra-city deliveries (be it food, mail parcels, or even logistical use), the electric trike comes with a range of 77 kilometers (48 miles) on a full charge, with an average speed of 30 km/h (18.6 mph), which sounds about right considering it’ll be operating within city zones and catering to internal speed limits. For now, the Honda Gyro Canopy e comes in 2 color options (white and red), with a pretty sizable price tag of 715,000 yen, or around $6,295… something that may sound pretty high for the individual, but shouldn’t cost much for businesses, who will probably buy the scooters in bulk.

Designer: Honda

A roof for you, a home for your furry friends

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If you’ve ever wanted to wake up to the chirping of birds, the Birdhouse Tiles are the best way to go about it. Not just a roof above your head, these tiles provide roofs above the heads of birds too. Integrating a birdhouse into the ceramic tile, the Birdhouse tiles can be used alongside regular ones, letting you put as many birdhouses you want on your roof.

Designed in consultation with Vogelbescherming Nederland (a Dutch organization that is concerned with protecting avian life), the Birdhouse helps support and house local birds, letting them flourish instead of dying out or migrating. Inside the Birdhouse, underneath the roof tile, a carefully designed nesting basket made of wood and bird screen is attached. This nesting basket ensures good ventilation, prevents the birds from moving to other empty spots underneath your roof and makes it really easy to clean the nest after a breeding period.

By installing one or more of these Birdhouse roof tiles, you give birds a safe haven to nest and raise their chicks. Instead of crawling under the roof tiles to build a nest and becoming pests rather than pets, the birds can now linger in their own cozy terracotta row houses!

Designer: Klaas Kuiken

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Blitzen Car Rooftop Beverage Chiller: Take Your Booze on a Cruise

Do you want an easy way to keep your beer or wine cold, but don’t want to use the necessities that modern civilization has provided for you, like a refrigerator or ice? Well, you could always mount a growler to the roof of your car in the winter and… Too silly of an idea? I agree, but the fact is, this very concept actually exists.

It’s called Blitzen. Get it? Except instead of a reindeer braving the cold to help Santa deliver his presents to all of the good boys and girls, this Blitzen will hold a bottle of wine or a growler of beer and attaches to your vehicle’s roof with 100-pound magnets to deliver sober boys and girls a cold drink when they hit their destination.

Your bottle stays secure with a ratchet-style fastener. I find it interesting that there’s no lock on it. So basically, every time you stop, your beer or wine is in serious danger of someone swiping it and making a run for it. Oh well. If they are daring enough and get away with it, I say they earned it.

I’m gonna get something with a spacious roof and a set of 9 of these and call myself Santa. “Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen! On Comet! On Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen! You too Rudolph! *burp* Onward to partytown!”

[via Geekologie via Cool Material]