Hasta La Ideas

Cedar shingles typical to New England houses have gradually faded from warm beige to a soft greyish brown on the walls of this residence in Maine by Los Angeles office Bruce Norelius Studio (+ slideshow).

Bruce Norelius Studio completed House on Punkinville Road in 2008 for a couple looking for a change of lifestyle as well as a new residence. Five years on, the pair say the best quality of the house is its adaptability to the changing seasons.

“During a snowstorm, we don’t watch the storm, we’re inside the storm,” said the client. “The amount of glass and the way the glass is placed takes every advantage of the site. And the sun is a constant presence.”

He continued: “As the light changes from hour to hour, from room to room, from season to season, it changes the rooms. The living area is not the same room at sunset as it was at sunrise, nor is it the same in winter as it is in the spring.”

Located several kilometres inland from Smelt Cove, the house sits on an elevated site surrounded by juniper trees and blackberry bushes. A concrete base grounds the structure into the landscape, while the main walls are all clad with the humble cedar shingles.

“It’s gratifying to know the clients are enjoying life here, even during the harsh Maine winters,” said the architects. “The facades are simple, confident and holding true, telling their time naturally, which is a narrative we continue to embrace in our work.”

The building is primarily made up of two rectilinear volumes stacked over one another to create an L-shaped plan. This creates a sheltered driveway at ground level and a generous roof terrace on the first floor.

Proportions were based around a prefabricated window module, which is used throughout. Combined with a specification for a simple timber structure, this design concept allowed the architects to deliver the project on a low budget.

The interior layout was also kept as simple as possible, with a pair of bedrooms and bathrooms on the ground floor and an open-plan living, dining and kitchen space above.

Photography is by Sandy Agrafiotis, apart from where otherwise indicated.

Here’s a project description from Bruce Norelius Studio:

House on Punkinville Road

The genesis of this project came from the clients, a couple who had lived many years in a treasured 19th century cape, and who sought a significant change in lifestyle. Their deep appreciation of that cape and its particular relationship with its site made them realise that their new site – a spectacular inland promontory on ledge, juniper and blueberries with extensive views – required a very different architectural solution.

The concept that evolved was a perpendicular stacking of two simple volumes. This allowed a relatively small footprint on a pristine site, and also created useful negative space – a carport below, and an expansive deck above. Furthermore, it guaranteed that the house took advantage of the entire site, ensuring each space its own particular, appropriate relationship to sun, passive solar gain, and views.

The plan is simple and rigorous, based on the module of a single prefabricated window unit that is used throughout. The entirely-wood structural system was edited and refined to allow speed and clarity in the construction process.

The sober expression of the house responds intentionally to the climatic demands of the site, and is clad humbly in white cedar shingles, the most traditional of New England building materials, and exactly what was used on that cape built a century and a half ago.

The priority on the interior was to create calm spaces deeply influenced by the seasons and weather. A remarkably low construction cost was achieved because of the clients’ ability to prioritise goals, the design team’s search for simplicity in both aesthetics and construction techniques, and the builder’s ability to propose alternative, less expensive solutions for aspects of the building.

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reveals its age with a fading cedar facade appeared first on Dezeen.

The three-fingered plan of this rural Californian retreat by Mork-Ulnes Architects is oriented to frame views of a mountain ridge, vineyards and a local landmark named Eagle Rock (+ slideshow).

Mork-Ulnes Architects, which has offices in California and Oslo, designed the Moose Road house as a simple getaway for two young couples, using low-cost engineered materials such as plywood and oriented strand board.

The house’s sprawling volume stretches out across its site like a splayed glove, setting up apertures towards the various landmarks whilst avoiding the roots of several nearby oak trees.

“The main challenge was to frame these three separate views while at the same time, preserving each existing oak tree on site,” explained architect and studio founder Casper Mork-Ulnes.

A solution the architect and team members Greg Ladigin and Andreas Tingulstad came up with was to raise the building off the ground on steel stilts. This also helped to frame the best views through the three floor-to-ceiling windows.

The outer skin of the house comprises a layer of steel siding. Interior walls are lined with birch plywood, while floors display the chipboard aesthetic of oriented strand board, which has been cleaned with a lye soap solution.

“To cut cost as well as meet sustainability goals of the clients, the building was designed using standard-sized, off-the-shelf sheet goods to minimise waste,” said Mork-Ulnes.

Entrance to the house is via a small porch that steps down to meet the ground. This leads through to an open-plan living room and kitchen that offers the view towards Eagle Rock – a rocky outcrop named after its resemblance to an eagle’s head.

Bedrooms are located within the two smaller wings and are screened behind self-contained toilet and closet units that are glazed at the top to allow light to filter through each space.

Furniture was added sparsely to prevent the interior feeling cramped, but includes a selection of burnt wood pieces by San Francisco artist Yvonne Mouser.

Photography is by Bruce Damonte.

Here’s a project description from Mork-Ulnes Architects:

Moose Road

Three locally known land formations can be seen from the site of this project: “Eagle Rock”, a mountain ridge, and the valley of vineyards below. The main challenge was to frame these three separate views while at the same time, preserving each existing oak tree on site.

The three fingers extend precisely in between the existing trees, each oriented toward a land formation. The house was constructed on steel stilts to avoid severing tree roots. 

To cut cost as well as meet sustainability goals of the clients, the building was designed using standard sized, off-the-shelf sheet goods (unfinished plywood and OSB) to minimise waste. The building was accomplished with a tiny budget (by California standards) at under $190 per square foot.

Architecture firm – Mork-Ulnes Architects
Project Design Team – Greg Ladigin, Casper Mork-Ulnes, Andreas Tingulstad
Contractor – Crossgrain Co. Inc.
Structural Engineer – Double-D Engineering

Site size: 16 acres
Building size: 1,140 square feet
Construction cost per square foot: $190

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frames the Californian landscape appeared first on Dezeen.

This all-black house in the Yucca Valley desert was designed by Los Angeles office Oller & Pejic to look “like a shadow” (+ slideshow).

Located within the borders of the Joshua Tree National Park, where sunlight is often painfully harsh, Desert House was designed by husband and wife architects Monica Oller and Tom Pejic as a volume that would be easy to rest the eyes on.

They explained: “Our client had given us a brief but compelling instruction at the start of the process – to build a house like a shadow.”

Despite its remote rural location, the house was constructed on a site that had been flattened in the 1960s. This meant the building couldn’t be staggered down the slope and was instead designed with a mostly level floorplate that ends at the edge of a precipice.

“The house would replace the missing mountain that was scraped away, but not as a mountain, but a shadow or negative of the rock,” said the architects, explaining how they imagined the design early on in the process.

The two wings of the house sprawl out across the site, framing various outdoor spaces. A courtyard is sandwiched between the bedrooms and living spaces, while a swimming pool sits in the south-east corner and a sheltered triangular patio points northwards.

“We wanted the experience of navigating the house to remind one of traversing the site outside,” added Oller and Pejic.

The open-plan living room and kitchen forms the the largest space of the house. Floor-to-ceiling windows open the space out to the courtyard and offer panoramic views of the vast desert landscape.

Both this space and the adjoining bedroom wing feature black walls inside as well as out, intended to create a “cave-like feeling”.

“During the day, the interior of the house recedes and the views are more pronounced. At night the house completely dematerialises and the muted lighting and stars outside blend to form an infinite backdrop for contemplation,” said the architects.

Here’s a project description from Oller & Pejic:

Black Desert House

Oller & Pejic Architecture is a husband and wife architecture partnership located in Los Angeles, California.

This project began with an e-mail and a meeting in fall of 2008 for a house in Yucca Valley, which is located near Palm Springs, east of Los Angeles in the high desert near the Joshua Tree National Park.

We had completed two projects in Yucca Valley and occasionally received inquiries about projects in the desert. In the midst of the economic downturn typically these inquiring led nowhere. We had just had our second child and things were looking rather uncertain. We decided to meet with Marc and Michele Atlan to see if their project was a reality. Even from the first communications, Marc’s enthusiasm was noticeable.

After the first meeting, we found that we shared a common aesthetic and process and after seeing the property we knew this was a project like nothing else we had done, really almost a once in a lifetime opportunity. There was no looking back, we immediately began work on the house.

Beyond the technical and regulatory challenges of building on the site – several previous owners had tried and given up – there was the challenge of how to build appropriately on such a sublime and pristine site. It is akin to building a house in a natural cathedral.

Our client had given us a brief but compelling instruction at the start of the process – to build a house like a shadow. This had a very specific relevance to the desert area where the sunlight is often so bright that the eye’s only resting place is the shadows.

Unfortunately, the site had been graded in the 1960s when the area was first subdivided for development. A small flat pad had been created by flattening several rock outcroppings and filing in a saddle between the outcroppings. To try to reverse this scar would have been cost prohibitive and ultimately impossible. It would be a further challenge to try to address this in the design of the new house. The house would be located on a precipice with almost 360 degree views to the horizon and a large boulder blocking views back to the road.

A long process of research began with the clients showing us images of houses they found intriguing – mostly contemporary houses that showed a more aggressive formal and spatial language than the mid-century modern homes that have become the de-facto style of the desert southwest.

We looked back at precedents for how architects have dealt with houses located in similar topography and found that generally they either sought to integrate the built work into the landscape, as in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and later Rudolf Shindler or to hold the architecture aloof from the landscape as in the European modernist tradition of Mies van der Rohe. While on a completely virgin site, the lightly treading minimalist approach would be preferred, here we decided that the Western American tradition of Land Art would serve as a better starting point, marrying the two tendencies in a tense relationship with the house clawing the ground for purchase while maintaining its otherness.

The house would replace the missing mountain that was scraped away, but not as a mountain, but a shadow or negative of the rock; what was found once the rock was removed, a hard glinting obsidian shard.

Concept in place, we began fleshing out the spaces and movement through the house. We wanted the experience of navigating the house to remind one of traversing the site outside. The rooms are arranged in a linear sequence from living room to bedrooms with the kitchen and dining in the middle, all wrapping around a inner courtyard which adds a crucial intermediate space in the entry sequence and a protected exterior space in the harsh climate.

The living room was summed up succinctly by Marc as a chic sleeping bag. The space, recessed into the hillside with a solid earthen wall to lean your back against as you survey the horizon is a literal campsite which finds its precedent in the native cliff dwellings of the south west.

The dark colour of the house interior adds to the primordial cave-like feeling. During the day, the interior of the house recedes and the views are more pronounced. At night the house completely dematerialises and the muted lighting and stars outside blend to form an infinite backdrop for contemplation.

The project would never have come about without the continued efforts of the entire team. The design was a collaborative effort between Marc and Michele and the architects. The patience and dedication of the builder, Avian Rogers and her subcontractors was crucial to the success of the project. Everyone who worked on the project knew it was something out of the ordinary and put forth incredible effort to see it completed.

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to look “like a shadow” appeared first on Dezeen.

Oregon architects Works Partnership Architecture converted a warehouse in Portland into a home and studio by punching skylights through the preserved bowstring truss roof and inserting living quarters within timber-clad boxes (+ slideshow).

Bowstring Truss House is a conversion of a 5,000 square foot industrial building into a column-free home with a “pixellated” arrangement of timber-clad private spaces.

“The goal of the design was to maintain the vast trussed ceiling and the open floor plane, while inserting a standard residential program that the clients could live among,” Works Partnership Architecture explained.

“A strategy was adopted for inserting the program into the shell in a loose arrangement of programmed ‘boxes’,” the architects added. “In order to allow a sense of the ‘whole’, a pixellated subset of elements could create a broad spectrum of both public and private spaces while never competing with the recognisable order of the roof.”

A bowstring truss is a structural device commonly used in bridge-building and, less often, in industrial architecture. Used to span wide, column-free spaces, it consists of an arched beam (the bow) joined at each end by a straight beam (the string), with diagonal support beams joining the two.

Bowstring trusses were commonly used in the United States in the early part of the Twentieth Century, particularly for buildings such as car dealerships, auto repair shops and bowling alleys.

This particular example was was originally built as a warehouse and mechanic’s workshop. The conversion includes an internal courtyard that slots between two of the five original timber roof trusses.

The courtyard is glazed at the top to bring light into the interior and surrounded by timber walls at floor level, with glazed openings that frame views of its planted interior.

Knotted timber panelling covers some of the interior surfaces and contrasts with the minimal white walls found throughout the house.

Photography is by Joshua Jay Elliott.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Bowstring Truss House
Portland, Oregon

Works Partnership Architecture announced this month that the firm has completed the Bowstring Truss House, a private residence and studio was adapted from a 5000 sf former warehouse and auto repair shop. The space is clear spanned by a series of five bowstring trusses and exposed roof framing.

The goal of the design was to maintain the vast trussed ceiling and the open floor plane, while inserting a standard residential program that the clients could live among.

The design manages both scales simultaneously: a sense of the expanse of the entire structure as well as scaled discrete living areas—a new environment, a simplified terrain between earth and sky.

A strategy was adopted for inserting the program into the shell in a loose arrangement of programmed “boxes”. The five trusses provided more than enough meter for the space.

In order to allow a sense of the “whole”, a pixilated subset of elements could create a broad spectrum of both public and private spaces while never competing with the recognisable order of the roof. The functionality of the house flows lucidly. A free pattern of new skylights create a constellation of light and discrete pools of sun.

At the centre of the house, the groundscape and the roofscape align to form a central courtyard—a vitrine of nature, and a vessel to capture the elusive Pacific Northwest light.

Project: Bowstring Truss House
Land/Built-up area: 5,000 sq ft
Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
Architect: Works Partnership Architecture
Project team: Carrie Strickland, William Neburka, Megan Coyle, Jennifer Dzienis, Ian Campbell
Contractor: Don Tankersley Construction

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with a spectacular roof into a home appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Arizona architect Nick Tsontakis has unveiled plans for a house that will straddle a mountain and be shaped like a manta ray (+ slideshow).

The $30-million two-storey building is designed by Nick Tsontakis to sit on top of Mummy Mountain in Arizona.

“The overall form of the home is reminiscent of a manta ray – even though this was not intentional – and from the air the structure looks like it’s swimming on top of the mountain,” Tsontakis told Dezeen. “I wanted to make the house design memorable and simple. It is organic, soft and liveable.”

Tsontakis told Dezeen that he came up with the concept to capture views of both the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale to the north and of Camelback Mountain and the city lights in Downtown Phoenix to the south. “It meant that I would somehow have to infuse the house into the mountain,” he explained.

A number of local guidelines restricted the scale of the design, said the designer. “We were not to exceed the height of the top of the mountain in the centre of the home and we had to draw a 20 degree line from the [mountain’s] pinnacle in all directions, which the house could not penetrate,” he explained.

Once completed, the property will contain six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, and will boast views across Paradise Valley from a series of viewing decks.

A ten-car garage located on the upper level will be accessed via a sloping road. On the same level there will be an entry hall and a pair of two-bedroom guest wings.

Stairs and elevators will descend to the main ground level, which will accommodate a master wing on the north side and a large living area to the south.

“The two wings will be connected with a tunnel bored through the mountain from north to south, and on the east a 2000 square-foot entertainment hall would be carved out of the mountain,” added Tsontakis.

The property is currently listed by Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty and is due for completion in 2015. Tsontakis told Dezeen that “the project is not under construction yet”, but that he is in conversations with “several interested parties.”

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Renderings by Nick Tsontakis AIA Architecture and Interiors.

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to straddle an Arizona mountain appeared first on Dezeen.