SBLM Architects Ireland

04/02/2020

Did you know that Stephen's Green Shopping Centre opened in 1988. Did anyone else think it was much older?🤔via Robheath photography

31/01/2020

Each week we try to showcase buildings of interest of various styles and locations around the world.

This week we are taking a look at the research centre designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) that has been named Saudi Arabia’s smartest building.

The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre (KAPSARC) has a modular design based on the hexagonal structure of a honeycomb. According to ZHA, this “emerges from the desert landscape, evolving to best respond to the environmental conditions and internal programme requirements”.

The campus buildings surround a courtyard shaded by canopies supported by a forest of steel columns. It presents a solid shell to the torrid sunlight from the south, and opens up to north and west, allowing the prevailing winds to cool the courtyard during temperate months and preparing a future expansion of the campus to the north.

Some of the cells within each building are left open to create courtyards that bring daylight into the interior.

The projects was awarded LEED Platinum certification by the US Green Building Council.

film by Hans Georg Esch

13/12/2019

*** Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from our multinational team***

Nollaig shona agus bliain úr faoi mháise ón foireann uilig anseo. {Ireland}

Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo!!! {Italy}

Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año!!! (Spain & Mexico}

Feliz Natal e um próspero ano novo!!! {Brasil}

***SBLM Architects Ireland***

04/10/2019

Dear friends,

Hurry up, Open House next weekend in our beloved Dublin!!!
Lots of great buildings being exhibited this year. Don't miss out.

See the link below for more info!
See you there!




https://openhousedublin.com/

23/05/2019

-Nice and slim-

Northwestern National Life Building, Minneapolis

The Northwestern National Building, is an office building located in the Gateway District of Minneapolis. It was designed by Minoru Yamasaki and was opened in 1965. The building was built to replace the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company Home Office near Loring Park, which had become too small for the number of employees in the company.

The building features a 85 foot (26 m) portico that serves as the visual terminus for the Nicollet Mall.
Yamasaki said that his design was intended to be "appropriate to an office building, monumental and dignified, yet graceful." The building is framed by about 63 slender quartz-faced concrete columns. He said the porch at the main entrance would be "delicate" and "a delight to walk through". Yamasaki's touches also included reflective pools and landscaping, and he claimed he was designing "a park with a building in it".

Architecture critic Larry Millett calls it, "a temple to the gods of underwriting, built by the gods of underwriting and mixing luxury and high camp in way that, say, Liberace would have appreciated."

26/04/2019

Each week we try to showcase buildings of interest of various styles and locations around the world.
This week we are taking a look at the "Titanic Belfast" in Belfast, Northern Ireland by Eric Kuhne and Associates.

Kuhne and Associates were commissioned as concept architects, with Todd Architects appointed as lead consultants. The building's design is intended to reflect Belfast's history of shipbuilding and the industrial legacy of Harland & Wolff. Its angular form recalls the shape of ships' prows, with its main "prow" angled down the middle of the Titanic and Olympic slipways towards the River Lagan. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the building looks like an iceberg, and locals have already nicknamed it "The Iceberg".Most of the building's façade is clad in 3,000 individual silver anodised aluminium shards. It stands 126 feet (38 m) high, the same height as Titanic's hull.

View looking down into the atrium of Titanic Belfast
The interior of the eight-storey building provides 12,000 square meters (130,000 sq ft) of space. Its centerpiece is a series of interpretive galleries exploring aspects of the building, design, sinking and legacy of Titanic. The building also provides education, community, retail and restaurant facilities plus a community resource centre.

The construction of the building cost £77 million with an additional £24 million spent on pre-planning, enabling works, underground car park and public realm enhancements. The foundations to the building involved one of the country's largest-ever concrete pours with 4,200 cubic meters (150,000 cu ft) of concrete delivered by 700 concrete lorries in 24 hours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_Belfast

16/04/2019

It's a very sad day for architecture...

Yesterday we saw the beautiful Notre-Dame destroyed by fire. An incident which never should have happened and something we are seeing far too often.

Below you can view a fantastic 360 panorama high resolution photo from inside the Cathedral showing the incredible vaulted ceiling. lets hope repairs can be made soon and as much a possible can be salvaged from this historic piece of Gothic architecture.

NOTRE-DAME de PARIS (1160 - 1260)
For MEMORY before the fire - Pour MEMOIRE avant le feu - Per RICORDARE prima dell'incendio

- The grand medieval Cathedral in the heart of Paris. 13 million visitors yearly: the most visited monument in Europe and the most famous gothic building worldwide.

- La grandiose Cathédrale médiévale au coeur de Paris. 13 millions de visiteurs par an: le monument le plus visité d'Europe et le plus célèbre édifice gothique au monde.

- La grandiosa Cattedrale medioevale nel cuore di Parigi. 13 milioni di visitatori: il monumento più visitato in Europa ed il più famoso edificio gotico del mondo.

© Pietro Madaschi, Milan Italy - 360 VISIO​ - www.360visio.com

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

29/03/2019

Each week we try to showcase buildings of interest of various styles and locations around the world.
This week we are taking a look at the "Centre Georges Pompidou" in Paris, France by Renzo Piano & Richard Rogers.

"One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again." [Renzo Piano]

Designed as an “evolving spatial diagram” by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers Centre Pompidou was the first major example of an 'inside-out' building in architectural history, with its structural system, mechanical systems, and circulation exposed on the exterior of the building. Initially, all of the functional structural elements of the building were colour-coded: green pipes are (Plumbing), blue ducts are for (climate control), electrical wires are encased in yellow, and circulation elements and devices for safety (e.g., fire extinguishers) are red. According to Piano, the design was meant to be “not a building but a town where you find everything – lunch, great art, a library, great music”

The architecture of the Centre Pompidou boasts a series of technical characteristics that make it unique in the world – the inspiration, even the prototype, of a new generation of museums and cultural centres. It is distinctive firstly in the way it frees up the space inside, with each floor extending through the building entirely uninterrupted by load-bearing structures. The whole of each 7 500 m2 floor is thus available for the display of works or other activities, and can be divided up and reorganized at will, ensuring maximum flexibility. With its use of steel (15 000 tons) and glass (11 000 m²) and the externalization of its load-bearing structure together with circulation and services, it was a truly pioneering building for its time, an heir to the great iron buildings of the Industrial Age. In many ways futuristic, the Centre Pompidou is heir to the architectural utopias of the 1960s, exemplified in the work of Archigram and Superstudio. Its innovative, even revolutionary character has made the Centre Pompidou one of the most emblematic buildings of the 20th century.

https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Georges_Pompidou

In our second exclusive video interview with Richard Rogers, the British architect reveals that key elements of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which he design...

25/03/2019

Hi All,
We would like to thank you all for helping us reach the 500 likes on our SBLM page!

For this occasion we would like to share this amazing collection of Plans and photos from one of our favorite projects!

Please feel free to comment on any of these plans!

Original Plans and Elevation + Historical pictures of the Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Frank Lloyd Wright | Kaufmann Residence | Pennsylvania, USA | 1935-38

22/03/2019

Each week we try to showcase buildings of interest of various styles and locations around the world.
This week we are taking a look at the "Heidi Weber Pavilion" in Zurich, Switzerland by Le Corbusier.

"I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies". [Le Corbusier]

Iconic for its floating steel roof and brightly colored panels, the Pavillon Le Corbusier is the last building Le Corbusier designed before his death in 1965 marking a radical change of his achievement of using concrete and stone. Completed in 1967, the building stands as a testament to Corbusier’s renaissance genius as an architect, painter, and sculptor. It does so both intentionally, as it is an exhibition space for his life’s work, and naturally, as it is a building masterfully designed. Interestingly, the building diverges in some ways from the style responsible for his renown – concrete, stone, uniform repetition, etc. It celebrates the use of steel, with which he explored prefabrication and assembly, and a freedom through modularity, in which the plan is completely open but infinitely adaptable.

The roof was prefabricated and thereafter, in the biggest possible units, transported to the building site, where it was assembled on the ground. The two finally welded parts of the roof were then lifted to their final height (9 meters (30 ft)) by a crane and fixed on the pillars. With the frame completed, the construction process benefited from the independent roof protection which was at that time already in its proper place. It consists of cubes 2.26 x 2.26 meters (7.4 ft) which were assembled on the site. Walls, windows, ceilings and floors were then screwed onto the steel frame. The walls consist of enameled panels measuring 1.13 meters (3.7 ft) x 2.26 meters (7.4 ft). The placing of these enamel panels was planned according to a particular rhythmic system. Finally, the entire building complex was placed on a concrete ground floor. The building has two floors – five single-storied and one double-storied rooms. When constructing the building complex, more than 20,000 bolts were used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavillon_Le_Corbusier

05/03/2019

Well done to our transition year students who just completed their work experience with us last week in SBLM Architects!

Good luck in the future and thanks guys!