Architecture & Web Art

Posts Tagged ‘house’

Sumaré House - Exterior

The brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld designed this house for a graphic designer in São Paulo with a studio situated below street level opening into a garden.

Called Sumaré House and completed in 2007, the two-storey house features a studio and a long étagère to display the owners work.

The project also includes a space for ballet and a swimming pool on the upper floor, next to the clients bedroom.

With intense care for details, the Sumaré House, is a perfect example for open minded clients that can materialize in open spaces, and a improved lifestyle overall. Although the finishing materials are not what you can call “expensive” what the architect created with them yells out “style”.

The Straw Bale House

If we learned anything from childhood, it was not to build our houses out of straw. After all, that big bad wolf was just waiting to blow it down. But that was before the world knew the numerous advantages of using compressed straw bales, as a key building material as outlined in the book The Straw Bale House. This easy to understand book is comprehensive in its education on how to build with straw- so that no wolf (or tornado for that matter) can ever blow it down.

Situated in a suburban area, south of San Francisco, this particular dream home comes from Turnbull Griffin Haesloop Architects and brings two strong attributes to the table:  design and sustainability. The house was built considering the future owner’s requests: he wanted place that “maximizes the drama of the pond and takes advantage of the privacy of the site”. As a result, the architects decided to brake the main building into four separate smaller ones, all provided with large glass sliding doors that open up to face the garden and pond. The sustainability part is provided by solar panels, green building materials and special cool-off systems, without using air conditioner machines. -via Inhabitat

If living in the suburbs could ever be considered edgy, it would have to be in an unusual, unique and uncanny house such as this one. Odd angles abound, mixed materials define variegated spaces and above it all looms an incredible cantilevered bridge supporting gathering, living, cooking and eating spaces designed by Maddison Architects with views out in all directions.

Sleeping, bathing and more private programmatic activities are contained in concrete masonry section that is nearly the conceptual opposite of the bridge portion – buried, thick, heavy and solid. This section contrasts with the wide-open windowed expanses of the upper level, pierced holes at strategic points let in light and allow outside peaks only selectively.

The finishing materials come to complete the overall design in a spectacular mix of color and texture, bringing a modern stylish atmosphere to the site.

From young smart people come new smart ideas. Sure the concept of solar powered homes is not new but the students at Virginia Tech entered the “Lumenhaus” in the U.S Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition that not only achieves it goal of self sustaining power provided by the good old sun, but this cool living quarter of 800 sq. ft. changes according to the seasons, weather, and light. All of the shell parts including window and roof panels articulate to allow sunlight in and to capture more available light at all times of the day. See the Lumenhaus project that is underway now and get more information for your next solar powered or energy saving home here. Via Design Milk