Hasta La Ideas

This six-sided wooden cabin by Estonian designer Jaanus Orgusaar has walls that zigzag up and down and two circular windows resembling fisheye camera lenses (+ slideshow).

Designer Jaanus Orgusaar based the wooden house, called Noa, on the shape of a rhombic dodecahedron – a convex polyhedron with twelve identical rhombic faces. This creates a modular structure that can be extended with extra rooms, but that also feels like a round space from inside.

“The floor plan of the house is a hexagon, the walls and roof are compiled of identical rhombuses, therefore it is easy to continue the structure in space by adding the next module,” Orgusaar said. “The house lacks acute angles, therefore giving an impression of a round space.”

The 25-square-metre house is located in Estonia,

can be easily assembled or taken apart, meaning it can be transported elsewhere if needed.

It is built entirely from wood and its exterior cladding boards were soaked with iron oxide to give them a grey, weathered appearance intended to help the cabin blend into its surroundings.

Insulated wooden boards cover the roof to keep the interior warm, and the base of the structure is raised up from the ground to prevent damp.

“The building stands on three feet, not needing a foundation on the ground and is therefore also more cold-resistant than a usual dwelling,” explained Orgusaar.

Walls inside the cabin are plastered walls and painted yellow, and the space is furnished with a small kitchen and a dining table and chairs.

A terrace can be attached and used as a dining area in warm weather.

Orgusaar built the first house as a summer cottage for his family, and plans to add two more modules. The design is also being manufactured by prefabricated building company Katus and will be available for sale soon.

Here’s a project description from Jaanus Orgusaar:

Aiamaja Noa

Noa is an easily mountable sustainable living space, adaptable to a variety of landscapes and environments. The advantage is that one can always add a module to extend the housing step by step, with each module, ones “saves” a wall.

It is an invention by Jaanus Orgusaar, an Estonian designer-inventor. He built the first one for his own family, and plans to add two more modules. One module is 25 square metres.

The small house was brought to life from the need for a practical, sustainable and economical living space which would be easily mountable compiled from identical elements. The base element is a specific rhombus. The base for the structure is the rhombic dodecahedron.

The rhombic dodecahedron can be used to tessellate three-dimensional space. It can be stacked to fill a space much like hexagons fill a plane. Some minerals such as garnet form a rhombic dodecahedral crystal habit. Honeybees use the geometry of rhombic dodecahedra to form honeycomb from a tessellation of cells each of which is a hexagonal prism capped with half a rhombic dodecahedron. The rhombic dodecahedron also appears in the unit cells of diamond and diamondoids.

While looking for the perfect structure that would fill the space without void, Jaanus chose this unique structure for it is stable standing on three feet, stiff and because it spreads the tension evenly, and offers a synergy in space apprehension, having almost sacral feeling to its round space.

Jaanus is an inventor diving into the very bases of geometry. Many of his creations starting from shoes and fashion, product design and now architecture takes its inspiration from the sacred geometry, the five platonic solids and their inter-relations.

The building stands on three feet, not needing a foundation on the ground, therefore also more cold resistant than a usual dwelling. The house lacks acute angles, therefore giving an impression of a round space. The floor plan of the house is a hexagon, walls and roof compiled of identical rhombuses, therefore it is easy to continue the structure in space by adding the next module.

This kind of structure is simple and economical, yet strong, offering a great, almost timeless, sacral space experience. The little house is currently in use as a summer cottage for the designer’s family, the insides continue without interruption to the summer terrace that is used as a dining area. The house is situated at the brink of a forest in the very vicinity of a 200 year old pine tree and fur tree, therefore guests from the forest, as owls and squirrels are commonplace.

Materials used are all sustainable- wooden construction, floor and outside boarding, even roof- covered with thermo boards. The walls are plastered with limestone paste and painted with cottage cheese paint. The outside wall boards are soaked with iron-oxide to make the house grey fitting into the surrounding nature almost inconspicuously.

The round windows frame the view to the open space of endless fields. In the dark the windows reflect the space so that it creates an illusion of additional rooms in the dark.

Noa widens the concept of space offering a different space experience.

Author: designer Jaanus Orgusaar
Producer of first prototype: Jaanus Orgusaar
Producer: Woodland Homes
Photos: Jaanus Orgusaar and Terje Ugandi

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with wooden walls and fisheye windows appeared first on Dezeen.

This tiny seaside home in Kanagawa by Japanese office Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects is contained within little more than a pair of oversized windows raised up on stilts (+ slideshow).

Yasutaka Yoshimura designed the small building as a weekend house for a single resident and positioned it on a site measuring just three by eight metres on the edge of Sagami Bay.

Named Window House, the residence holds all its living spaces in the narrow gap between two framed windows, which offer views west towards the distant Mount Fuji from both inside the house and behind it.

“It seemed too difficult to avoid blocking the view of the neighbourhood behind. So I designed a large opening of the same size as the sea side on the road side in order to keep the view passing through the building in the absence of the owner,” said Yoshimura.

“It stands between land and sea and became a house as a window to see through,” he added.

The house is raised off the ground on concrete pilotis to protect it from high tides. This creates a sheltered patio underneath with a view of the shoreline.

Concrete blocks with triangular profiles lead up into the house, arriving at a dining room and kitchen on the first floor. An indoor staircase ascends to a living room and then on to a tiny bedroom.

There’s also a small storage loft slotted beneath a floor, which can be accessed using a ladder that is fixed in a vertical position.

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slotted between two huge windows appeared first on Dezeen.

Swedish firm Tengbom has designed a ten square-metre wooden house for students.

Linda Camara and Pontus Åqvist of Tengbom architects worked in collaboration with students from Lund University in Sweden to create the living unit, which is meant to be “affordable and sustainable”.

“Through an efficient layout and the use of cross-laminated wood as a construction material, the rent is reduced by 50 percent and the ecological impact and carbon footprint is also significantly reduced,” said Camara.

Inside the unit there is a small kitchenette with shelving and green storage cupboards, a small bathroom and a loft for sleeping that is accessed via small wooden steps fixed to the wall.

Two window shutters on the lower level can be folded down to use as a dining table and a desk. Under the loft area there is a hammock.

“The main issue was to design really smart units with no unnecessary space,” Camara told Dezeen. “Only well-designed space is afforded when designing for small living.”

The unit is constructed from cross-laminated wood that was sawn and shaped by timber firm Martinsons and mounted on site by Swedish building firm Ulestedt.

“Since this is a fairly new material on the Swedish market, we wanted to show the qualities, such as the possibilities to make the non-rectangular forms,” Camara said. “It is easier to make round corners than sharp 90-degrees.”

In 2014, 22 of the student units will be built and ready for students in Sweden to move into.

One of the student micro-homes is currently on display at the Virserum Art Museum as part of the Wood 2013 exhibition, which is open until 8 December 2013.

Other micro-homes featured on Dezeen recently include a cloud-shaped holiday home that sits next to a lake in south-west France and a concept for narrow apartments that fill tiny gaps between existing buildings.

See more micro-houses »
See more student housing »

Photography is by Bertil Hertzberg.

Here’s more information from the architects:

Tengbom Architects design a smart student flat

A student flat of only 10 square metres is currently exhibited at the Virserum Art Museum in the county Småland, Sweden.

Tengbom Architects has designed a student flat for students which is affordable, environmental-friendly and smart both in terms of design and choice of materials. The project is a collaboration with wood manufacturer Martinsons and real estate company AF Bostäder.

To meet the needs of students in a sustainable, smart and affordable way was the key questions when Tengbom in collaboration with students at the University of Lund was designing this student flat of 10 square meters. The unit is now displayed in Virserum Art Museum. In 2014, 22 units will be built and ready for students to move into.

To successfully build affordable student housing requires innovative thinking and new solutions. The area in each unit is reduced from current requirement, 25 square meters to 10 square meters through legal consent. This truly compact-living flat still offers a comfortable sleeping-loft, kitchen, bathroom and a small garden with a patio. Through an efficient layout and the use of cross laminated wood as a construction material the rent is reduced by 50 % and the ecological impact and carbon footprints is also significantly reduced.

Energy efficiency is a key issue when designing new buildings. Choosing right material and manufacturing methods is vital to minimise the carbon emission and therefore wood was chosen for its carbon positive qualities, and as a renewable resource it can be sourced locally to minimize transportation. The manufacturer method was chosen because of is flexible production and for it’s assembling technique which can be done on site to reduce construction time.

By exhibiting this well planned and sustainable student flat we want to challenge the conventional views and show new ways of thinking. What is good living? What materials can we use? To meet the future in a sustainable way we must be innovative in all aspects and have the courage to break new ground, says Linda Camara at Tengbom Architects.

Location: Virserums Konsthall Kyrkogatan 34, 570 80 Virserum
Architect: Linda Camara & Pontus Åqvist, Tengbom
Assistent Architect: Lina Rengstedt, Olof Nordenson, Magnus Juhlin

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by Tengbom appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish architecture studio Ábaton has developed a micro home that can be transported on the back of a lorry and placed almost anywhere (+ slideshow).

Ábaton chose dimensions of nine by three metres to provide just enough space for two people and also allow the transportable house to be hoisted onto the back of a truck.

“The proportions are the result of a thorough study by our architects’ team so that the different spaces are recognisable and the feeling indoors is one of fullness,” said Ábaton.

Externally the home is clad entirely in grey cement-board panels, creating a monolithic form.

However, some of these panels hinge open to reveal sliding glass doors in the front and windows to the sides.

A combined living room and kitchen is positioned in the centre with a bathroom and bedroom either side, all under a gabled roof that reaches 3.5 metres at its peak.

Spanish fir wood stained white lines the interior, which is furnished with products by Spanish design brand Batavia.

The unit can be manufactured in four to six weeks and assembled in just one day.

Ábaton also rebuilt a crumbling stone stable in the countryside of western Spain and converted the building into a self-sufficient family home.

If you’re into mobile architecture, check out a quilted cube bedroom attached to the back of a tricycle and a house on a sled that can be towed off the beach to avoid incoming tides.

See more mobile architecture »
See more micro homes »

Photographs by Juan Baraja.

The architects provided us with the following information:

Ábaton is proud to present its brand new project Portable Home ÁPH80

Twenty-seven square metres, sectional and for immediate placement.

Ábaton has developed the ÁPH80 series as a dwelling ideal for two people, easily transported by road and ready to be placed almost anywhere. The proportions are the result of a thorough study by our architects’ team so that the different spaces are recognisable and the feeling indoors is one of fullness.

It is a simple yet sturdy construction made of materials chosen to provide both comfort and balance. ÁPH80 embodies the principles and objectives of Ábaton: wellbeing, environmental balance, and simplicity.

ÁPH80 has three different spaces measuring 27 square metres (9×3): a living room/kitchen, a full bathroom and double bedroom. Its gabled roof is 3.5 metres high indoors. Most of the materials can be recycled and meet the sustainable criteria that Ábaton applies to all its projects. It blends in with the environment thanks to its large openings that bring the outdoors inside.

The use of wood throughout the building not only adds calmness and balance but it is also hypoallergenic. The sourced wood comes from regulated forests (will regrow to provide a wide range of other benefits such as further carbon storage, oxygen generation and forest habitat).

Technical Data

The outside is covered with grey cement wood board. Ventilated façade with ten-centimetre thermal insulation around the building. Solid timber structure manufactured through numerical control; inside timber panels made of Spanish Fir Tree dyed white. ÁPH80 has been designed and manufactured fully in Spain.

Manufacturing time: four to six weeks. Assembly time: one day. Transportation by road.

We are currently developing simpler series that can be added to the ÁPH80 to suit every particular need, creating larger spaces and contributing to the project’s versatility.

The post Casa Transportable ÁPH80
by Ábaton appeared first on Dezeen.

Design graduate Tanya Shukstelinsky has proposed a new type of affordable urban housing, with people living between two sheets of suspended fabric (+ slideshow).

Shukstelinsky’s Cocoon project features sheets of material with stairs and handholds stitched into them, allowing occupants to move between different living zones.

The result is extremely thin multi-storey dwellings that Shukstelinsky describes as “temporary living spaces for urban nomads”.

The designer created the installation as part of her final year project at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.

“Last year, during one of our studio classes named Cocoon, students were asked to design a private space in a public area,” Shukstelinsky explains.

“I came up with an idea for a space between two stitched layers of fabric. A person who lives in the space can move upon the stitches. The stitches are dividing the fabric into different areas – dining area, sleeping area and bath.”

The concept could be used to create affordable accommodation in expensive urban areas, Shukstelinsky says. “This concept of a vertical and narrow dwelling can be used in dense urban spaces with expensive real estate. Also, integration with modern technologies and smart textiles can provide the minimum we need for temporary accommodation.”

Other micro homes we’ve published include a motorised compact-living cocoon by Greg Lynn that rotates to provide space for relaxing, sleeping and bathing, and a modular system with cross-shaped capsules that can be flipped around to turn a living room into an office or bathroom.

See all our stories about micro homes »

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Tanya Shukstelinsky appeared first on Dezeen.