coPod Housing System

Over the past few years the practice has been involved in the development and research of Off-Site construction ideas for the rapid delivery of affordable housing. Part of this research includes the development of the coPod housing system, a unique range of offsite manufacture pods that contain all of the essential elements required for a modern home.

This particular house has been specifically designed to be transported in containers and shipped overseas. The external envelope and floors are constructed of solid timber cross laminated panels that are bolted together and left exposed on the inside. A combination of pods, containing Kitchen/WC/Stair at ground floor and Bathroom/Stair at the upper levels, sit in the centre of the plan servicing each room of the house with ventilation, power, communications and lighting. This avoids the need for any plumbing or electrical work on site, so the whole house takes 3 days to erect. The external finish can be applied in timber, brick or render to suit the local context.

New build house in Greece

View of the overhanging balconies

Work has started on a new built house designed by co-lab architects on top of a hill near Athens in Greece. The house overlooks the Mediterranean from the hill top and is due to be finished by next summer.

Islington housing competition

co-lab architects have submitted an entry for the Islington Housing Design Competition. We used the competition to further test and develop our ideas for the co-Pod housing system, it worked suprisingly well on quite a small and difficult site.

TV Drama

In the summer we designed a new clothes shop for the Choi Ji Young fashion chain in South Korea. Now a Korean film company are going to use our shop as one of their sets for a new drama with some of the most famous actors in Asia. We’re told the production company were looking for a ‘cool’ modern retail interior, we’re glad they thought our shop fitted the brief.

We haven’t even photographed the shop ourselves yet, so it looks like a good start to 2010.

Interestingly this is the first project that we have done as an office where we didn’t produce any drawings, the contractor worked completely from a Sketchup computer model.

Drama

New website

 

Finally we have updated our website and added a new blog/news section to keep people up to date with the projects at colab architects.

We have been working on some new and exciting projects this year and will be loading them up onto our projects page in the new year. This year, 2009, has been a difficult year for most architectural practices, but there seems to be some signs that the industry is picking up. We certainly feel that 2010 will be a year full of opportunities.

Time to go off to the office Christmas dinner!

Bar restaurant commission

It seems it’s out with the old and in with the new. co-lab architects have just been commissioned to redesign Occo Bar and Restaurant in Marylebone. Interestingly, the original bar was designed by us, so now we’re going to rip it all out and start again! We’ll be quite sad to see it go, but we’ll be salvaging the 7m long bar, made from bone and inlaid with metal, and turning it into  7 coffee tables. The bar was made by a team of dedicated craftsmen in Tangiers, Morroco.