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.

A series of pillars raise the interconnected rooms of this house by Benjamin Garcia Saxe Architecture above the tree tops of the surrounding Costa Rican forest (+ slideshow).

The San Jose office of Benjamin Garcia Saxe Architecture was asked to design the family home for a steeply sloping site, and chose to lift the building off the ground to optimise views of the Pacific Ocean.

Unlike nearby properties, the architects also wanted to avoid cutting into the landscape to create a flat piece of land on which to build.

“We essentially lifted the house up into the air on a series of piloti which gives the impression that it is floating above the hillside,” explained the architects. “By doing this we saved the immense cost of creating soil retention walls around the site.”

As well as making the most of views from the upper portion of the site, raising the building above the forest floor reduces its impact on the surrounding undergrowth.

“This common sense solution allowed us to create a very delicate intervention, one that allows the terrain to breathe whilst providing spectacular views out towards the ocean from the key location on the site,” the architects added.

The three cabins that make up the residence are arranged in a staggered formation to maintain sight lines towards the ocean from each room and from a linking corridor at the rear of the property.

Vertical shafts of bamboo lining the corridor allow a pattern of light and shadow to filter through onto the wooden decking.

Short bridges connect the circulation corridor to each of the rooms and to a terrace that zig-zags along the front of the property.

Large projecting roofs supported by a metal framework shelter the terrace from the sun.

Wooden shutters separating the rooms from the terrace can be folded back to open the spaces up to the outdoors and allow the breeze to ventilate the interiors.

The use of wood throughout the building helps to tie it in with its surroundings, while a bathroom facing the hillside and an outdoor bamboo shower bring the occupants closer to nature.

Photography is by Andres Garcia Lachner.

The architects sent us the following project description:

Casa Flotanta

The Gooden-Nahome family wanted to create a home on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica and they found an incredible site overlooking the ocean.

The biggest challenge we encountered was that their plot of land was predominantly comprised of a very steep slope, and the view of the ocean could only be seen from the upper-mid portion of the site. We saw this as an opportunity rather than a constraint and immediately considered an architectural response that was appropriate for these conditions.

Originally, we explored possibilities of creating large retaining walls and cutting back the soil in order to place the house, a technique typically employed for nearby buildings.

Ultimately, we decided to do the exact opposite and therefore allow the slope, the earth, the vegetation, water, and animals to flow underneath the house. We essentially lifted the house up into the air on a series of piloti which gives the impression that it is floating above the hillside.

By doing this we saved the immense cost of creating soil retention walls around the site. This common sense solution allowed us to create a very delicate intervention, one that allows the terrain to breathe whilst providing spectacular views out towards the ocean from the key location on the site.

Location: Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Date of Completion: November, 2013
Client: Gooden-Nahome Family
Area: Approx. 300 m2
Design Director: Benjamin Garcia Saxe
Project Coordinator: Daniel Sancho
Design Development: Soki So
Construction Documentation: Roger Navarro
Structural Engineer: Sotela Alfaro Ltd
Builder: Dante Medri

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Architecture is raised above a forest appeared first on Dezeen.

Toshiharu Naka of Tokyo-based Naka Studio added an asymmetric roof with overhanging eaves to this house in a Japanese skiing village to create a huge sheltered terrace for residents (+ slideshow).

Located within a patch of woodland in Nagano Prefecture, Villa in Hakuba was designed to adapt to a dramatically changing climate that switches between heavy snowfall in winter and soaring temperatures in summer.

Toshiharu Naka said he wanted to create a house that could open itself up to the surrounding woods, unlike the typical houses of the area that are raised a metre off the ground to protect them from deep snow.

“As a result, these houses are visually and functionally separated from the surrounding nature,” he explained.

To avoid this, the architect built a large polycarbonate roof canopy that shelters both the house and patio from snowfall.

“This large roof, made of polycarbonate panels to bear the weight of severe snow, is transparent to gain a lot of sunlight onto the roofed terrace. So, we can enjoy time and light in the forest,” he added.

Three ladders are positioned around the edges so that residents can hang curtains around the terrace. In summer these are nets to keep out mosquitoes, while in winter they are made of plastic to keep the heat in.

Sliding glass doors connect the patio with the main family room, which accommodates living, dining and kitchen areas, but can also be transformed into a bedroom by extending the length of a built-in bench.

Stairs lead up to a small study on an intermediate floor, then continue up to a larger bedroom space on the first floor.

The bathroom is housed within a small shed at the centre of the terrace and residents can use one of the ladders to climb onto its roof.

Exterior walls are clad with pale cedar siding and a concrete floor slab enables a passive geothermal heating system that gently warms and cools the house.

Photography is by Torimura Koichi.

Read on for a project description from Toshiharu Naka:

Villa in Hakuba

This small villa is an environmental device, where we can find ourselves as a part of nature throughout the year.

This villa is built in Hakuba, famous for its international snow resort. In this area, many houses have ground floor, which is set at 1 metre high from the ground because of the deep snow. As a result, these houses are visually and functionally separated from the surrounding nature.

So, I set the large roof upon the site at first, which enables a floor continuous with the ground level. This large roof, made of polycarbonate panels to bear the weight of severe snow, is transparent to gain a lot of sunlight onto the roofed terrace. So, we can enjoy time and light in the forest.

These architectural components work as a passive system at the same time. The floor, continuous with the ground, gains geothermal heat to store the slab under the floor. Surrounding snow works as an insulation in an environment below the freezing point. The transparent roof builds double skin, which enables natural ventilation by sunlight in summer and avoids ice dam problem in winter.

Architecture: Toshiharu Naka / Naka architects studio
Structural Engineer: Hirotsugu Tsuboi
Thermal analysis: Yoshitsugu Yamamoto
Location: Hakuba, Nagano Pref. Japan
Area: 84 sqm

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a huge terrace beneath its roof appeared first on Dezeen.

Ben Davidson of London studio Rodić Davidson Architects designed this garden shed in Cambridge, England, to the exact proportions of his grandfather’s old workbench and added pegboard walls for displaying a collection of handmade tools (+ slideshow).

The Garden Workshop is one of two wooden sheds that Rodić Davidson Architects has built at the end of Davidson’s garden. The other functions as a home office, but this one is used by the architect as a model-making workshop.

The building is designed around the size of two components. The first is a series of glazed panels the architect had been given for free by a contractor several years earlier, and the second is an old workbench originally belonging to his grandfather that he inherited after the recent death of his father.

“My grandfather was a carpenter by trade and extraordinarily talented; he should have been a cabinet maker,” said Davidson. “I recall many summers in my early teens, being packed off for two weeks to go and stay with my grandparents in Norfolk and spending the entire time with him in his workshop.”

“My father sadly died in 2012 and this led me to inherit my grandfather’s workbench and tools which had sat in the garage, unused and rusting, for almost 30 years since his death in 1985,” he added.

The building has a simple wooden box frame that is left exposed inside, fitting exactly around the old workbench.

The square recesses around the frame are infilled with pieces of lacquered pegboard that accommodate hooks for hanging the old tools, many of which Davidson says he made with his grandfather at the age of ten.

Modular wooden shelving boxes also slot into the recesses, while an extra workbench made from maple runs along one wall beneath a window.

Two skylights offer a view up to the sky through the canopy of an adjacent tree and a concrete base gives the shed its floor.

The exterior is clad with black-stained plywood over a layer of rubber waterproofing.

Photography is by the architect.

Here’s a project description from Rodić Davidson Architects:

Garden Studio, Cambridge

A black timber garden studio and model-making workshop

Hidden in amongst the trees at the end of a long garden in Cambridge, we have designed and built two separate timber-framed buildings for use as a home office/studio and a model-making workshop. The structures are clad in vertical black-stained softwood boarding of varying widths – wider on the studio and narrower on the workshop. On the studio, the cladding forms a continuous rainscreen and wraps the entire building. The larger studio building is very highly insulated (using 150mm Cellotex combined with Super Tri-Iso) and incorporates a super efficient air-source heat pump. Calculations indicate that the annual heating bill will cost less than £21 in electricity costs. The building is wrapped with a black timber rain screen over a complete wrapper of a rubber membrane for water-proofing.

Free glass

We moved to Cambridge in 2008 and, not long after having done so, I was offered – free of charge – some large Velfac glazed panels from a contractor that we were working with who had incorrectly ordered them for a new school. If I hadn’t have taken them, they would have gone in the skip.

The panels arrived at my new house in Cambridge on the same day that we moved in. For 4 years they sat in the garden under a blue tarpaulin.

Beautiful tools to restore and display

My father sadly died in 2012 and this led me to inherit my grandfather’s workbench and tools which had sat in his garage, unused and rusting, for almost 30 years since his death in 1985. My grandfather was a carpenter by trade and extraordinarily talented: he should have been a cabinet maker. I recall many summers, in my early teens, being packed off for two weeks to go and stay with my grandparents in Norfolk and spending the entire time with him in his workshop.

The two events – my father’s death and came together and led me to design and build the workshop. The design was led by numerous very specific criteria: The size of my grandfathers workbench, the size and number of glass units, the wish to not only store – but to display the wonderful tools (most of which my grandfather had made – indeed some we made together when I was 10).

The final briefing constraint was the wish to build the buildings under Permitted Development.

The design

The workshop is made using a timber frame on a concrete base. The frame is set out precisely so as to form internal square sections. The timber is cheap 6×2 softwood used for stud work. The frame was clad with ply (2 sheets on the roof) and then cross battened and clad again with staggered roofing battens (50x25mm). Internally, pegboard was cut and placed between the stud work squares and the entire internal space was then prepared and sprayed with 7 coats of Morrells satin lacquer. This was extremely time consuming. Birch ply cupboards were then fitted into the openings.

A workbench was made from maple accommodating a lower platform for the Meddings pillar drill and a sink. The elevation above the workbench is fully glazed and north facing.

Two roof lights were installed which look up into the canopy of the lime tree over.

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workbench and a collection of handmade tools appeared first on Dezeen.

Vienna design collective Mostlikely modelled this Alpine lodge on the wooden agricultural barns of surrounding mountain villages.

Mostlikely wanted to design a building that would be suited to a modern family lifestyle, but that also wouldn’t look out of place amongst the traditional architecture of its locality in Kitzbühel, Austria.

“This coherent architectural landscape allows for a romantic identity as well as regional authenticity and serves as the layer stone of the tourism industry in this area,” said the designers.

Rather than replicating the design of the local houses, they took the form of an old barn as the model for the house’s shape and appearance.

“The typology of the barn with its brick-built, massive socket that contrasts its open hayloft seemed to suit today’s needs better than the traditionally poor-lit farmers house of the old days,” added the designers.

Named The Barn, the three-storey house comprises a base of bare concrete rather than brickwork, and a wooden upper section with a gently sloping roof that helps prevent a large build-up of snow.

The architects collaborated with sculptor Stefan Buxbaum on the design of the concrete, using a corrosive chemical to engrave images of flowers and fishes into the surface to reference the “myths of the mountains”.

Living and dining rooms occupy the middle floor of the building and include double-height spaces with views up to the exposed wooden roof beams. A wood-burning stove sits between the kitchen and dining room, while glass doors lead out a large balcony terrace.

A metal staircase ascends to a top-floor mezzanine and descends to three bedrooms located on the ground floor.

Photography is by Mostlikely and Maik Perfahl.

Here’s a project description from Mostlikely:

The Barn – Edition Kitzbühel 2012. Living like a wild emperor. Staged Authenticity.

To build a one family house in the region of Kitzbühel architect Mark Neuner and the team of mostlikely took a better part of the design process as a research quest on how to build in a contemporary way without neglecting the historic traditions. Questions with great significance in an area where tradition not only weighs heavily on old houses but hardly any new houses that are more daring are to be found at all.

This coherent architectural landscape allows for a romantic identity as well as regional authenticity and serves as the layer stone of the tourism industry in this area. To respect and preserve the substance of the idyllic mountain village Going am Wilden Kaiser (the name of the mountain which literally translates to “Wild Emperor”) mostlikely chose to stage the well-known and proven in a new way.

The ideal model

Numerous walks through the environment and a deep dive into the history as well as the cliches associated with the area helped to analyse, measure and document the surroundings. These physical and mental excursions would then lead to a visualised outline of the plan that was full of variety and complexity. This way of “working in pictures” at the beginning of the design process enabled us to get a stronger connection with the space. This approach eventually led mostlikely to the barn instead of the traditional house to play the model for the further development. The typology of the barn with its brick-built, massive socket that contrasts its open hayloft seemed to suit today’s needs better than the traditionally poor-lit farmers house of the old days.

Concrete Flowers (or Fable and Flora)

The point of culmination for the idea of the barn was the socket. Instead of brick, concrete was the material of choice and the magic could take place: flowers and creatures that would slightly remind the myths of the mountains would grow – thanks to a corrosion technique – on the especially designed and each separately cast concrete panels. Moreover in an almost manic cooperation with the sculptor Stefan Buxbaum mostlikely was able to create panels of concrete almost as light as a feather so that even the automatic garage door would open and thus be integrated invisibly in the facade of the building.

Proven but progressive

In the living areas of the house especially designed furniture, walls made from exposed concrete and most prominently the wooden roof timbering that would dominate the shape and feel of the upper floors would connect the shapes of the past with modern living styles just naturally without insinuating.

Unpretentious and natural as a barn should be, a new typology of housing in the mountains was born: “Scheune Edition Kitzbühel 2012” its name.

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based on an agricultural barn appeared first on Dezeen.