Hasta La Ideas

This guest house by Russian architect Peter Kostelov has a patchwork timber facade with perforated panels that look like paper doilies (+ slideshow).

The Deco Pattern House is located in the grounds of a house in Russia’s Konakovsky district and was influenced by the decorative style of early nineteenth-century Russian architecture.

“It’s reminiscent of old Soviet-time buildings when people had limited access to building materials, so as a result most private houses looked like patchwork blankets,” Peter Kostelov told Dezeen.

The timber facade is broken up into a series of squares and rectangles, differentiated with pine slats of different sizes, orientations and finishes. All joints are hidden behind overlapping planks of white-painted wood, fixed to one another with zinc screws.

Doors and windows are surrounded by the decorative plywood panels and trims, featuring laser-cut patterns that look like computer pixels.

“The ornament seems to consist of enlarged pixels, bringing the modern computer to the decor,” explained Kostelov. “Similar drawings used to be seen on ornaments embroiled on tissues and were copied and multiplied like patterns framing the edges of the shape,” he added.

The guest house encompasses two bedrooms, an office space, a shower and a toilet along with a small kitchen and dining area. The living room sits between the two bedrooms while a workshop area is isolated from the rest of the house.

This isn’t the first time Kostelov has created a house with a patchwork facade. He previously designed a riverside summerhouse clad with an assortment of wooden slats in Tverskaya, Russia. See more design by Peter Kostelov »

See more holiday homes on Dezeen »
See more architecture in Russia »

Photography is by Zinon Razutdinov.

Here’s some more from the architect:

Function

This house is the second after the bigger cottage on the same plot. It is the guests’ house. Apart from living room and a kitchen there are two bedrooms, toilet with shower, a workshop and storage. There is also a veranda and a garage for two cars. This house faces the bigger cottage. Its facade is richly decorated, which is sure to ennoble the plot and makes an attractive view if to look out of the bigger cottage. The house’s dimension is due to the size of the plot – 21 metres long and 6 metres wide – which is corresponding to the minimal size for two cars parking. Each of the two rather small bedrooms has kingsize beds, office zones and storage place for guests’ comfortable staying. Shower and toilet are next to the entrance. The living room is between two bedrooms. There are also a small kitchen, dining room and a divan area. Open air veranda with its small window for airing is under the housetop of the building. As for the workshop it is isolated so that the residents wouldn’t disturb the guests.

Decorations

The idea of the house decorations is recognisable for Russian style: a lot of decorative elements placed around windows and doors. Simple shapes and classical decorative elements should have created harmony. Walls are cut into segments and differ from each other in size of trimming wooden elements, colour and texture all of which create moving background. Above them decorative elements – trims and shutters are fixed. Joints of linings and threads are covered with crosswise planks fixed with visible zinc screws creating a bulge effect on simple shape of facade. Ornament of decorative elements is graphically processed. Oval elements are removed from it. The ornament seems to consist of enlarged pixels bringing modern computer origin of decor.  Similar drawings used to be seen on ornaments embroiled on tissues and were copied and multiplied like patterns framing the edges of the shape.

Technologies

Foundation is like a belt made of channel and is based on steel piles screwed evenly every 3 metres. Roof made from metal panels. Frame and panel technology is implemented in building of this house with timber 50 х 150 mm, insulation, hydro and wind proof pellicle and wooden trimming of both sides of walls. Decorative elements are made of waterproof plywood of 15 mm. thick.

The post Deco Pattern House
by Peter Kostelov appeared first on Dezeen.

Roughly hewn concrete gives a rocky texture to the walls of this Alpine holiday home by Austrian studio Marte.Marte Architects (+ slideshow).

The four-storey Mountain Cabin was constructed by Marte.Marte Architects on the side of a hillside in Laterns, Austria, and boasts far-stretching views of the surrounding mountains and forests.

Two rectangular openings wrap around the rectilinear body of the house, dividing it into two and creating a sheltered outdoor terrace on the upper-middle floor. This level functions as the building’s entrance and can be accessed via a staircase at the rear.

A second staircase spirals down from this floor to bedrooms and storage areas on the lower levels and up to an open-plan kitchen and living room on the uppermost floor.

Smooth concrete walls and ceilings are left exposed inside the house and contrast with the rugged surface of the facade. Floors, doors and window frames are oak, as is much of the furniture.

Square windows are dotted around each elevation and are the only other interruption to the clean lines of the facade.

“The openings punched into the double-walled concrete shell are transformed into framed landscape paintings,” says the studio, describing the views from the windows.

We’ve published a few houses in the mountains of Austria, including a boxy concrete house surrounded by sloping meadows and a cabin built from locally sourced spruce, fir and elm. See more houses in Austria.

Other winter retreats we’ve featured include a snowboarding cabin in Canada and a contemporary Alpine chalet. See more winter retreats on Dezeen.

Photography is by Marc Lins.

Here’s a project description from Marte.Marte Architects:

Mountain cabin in Laternser valley

At the edge of a wooded ravine, beneath the imposing wooden house of the Catholic Community of Sisters, the small tower building rises from the steep hillside.

Striking and modest in appearance, it stretches up out of a small hollow situated on a narrow path along the edge of the forest.

The only change made to the hillside is the driveway and the terrain has been left in its original form.

Fitting into the landscape as if it were a barn, the building, which is a fine example of the homogeneous use of materials, in this case, carefully hewn rough concrete, stands out against the meadow green and winter white. Its ashy-gray colour only contrasts slightly with the heavy oak front doors and the anthracite-coloured handrails blend in with the branches of the surrounding forest. As if they were punched into the walls, the square windows of different sizes are spread out across the walls, and their full effect is only achieved at the corners.

The integration of the outer surfaces requested by the client is a kind of artifice. At the entry level, which is accessible via a flight a steps, the structure narrows down to two supporting corner columns, which not only provides guests with the unique opportunity to look through the building while at the same time enjoying a panorama view of the surrounding landscape, the whole time protected from the elements, but also lends the entrance a sense of significance.

Inside the column, a spiral staircase connects the living area on the upper level with the two more private areas on the lower level, where the bedrooms and relaxation areas are interlocked like a puzzle. Semantically speaking, this gesture of the tower creates archetypes of fortified structures and abstract computer figures in your mind’s eye, making the tower seem familiar and strange at one and the same time.

Inside, the openings punched into the double-walled concrete shell are transformed into framed landscape paintings by wide, matte solid oak window frames that do not take up much wall space. These framed windows direct the guest’s attention to the prominent mountain chain, the gentle slopes and the dense forest grove.

Besides the raw concrete surfaces and the untreated oak floors, doors and fixtures, the black metal surfaces complement the harmonious, austere combination of materials. The client and architects haven’t built a flimsy holiday house, but instead a place of retreat that will remain standing for generations, despite any forthcoming changes of climate and landscape.

Client: private
Planning: Marte.Marte Architekten
Location: 6830 Laterns-Vorarlberg-Austria
Site area: 485.4 sqm
Gross floor area: 102.6 sqm
Floor area: 87 sqm
Built-up area: 43.03 sqm

The post Mountain Cabin by
Marte.Marte Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Windows of various shapes and sizes give this weekend retreat on the south coast of Japan the appearance of a children’s shape-sorter toy.

Designed by Tokyo studio Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects, Nowhere but Sajima forms part of the Nowhere Resort, a series of rentable holiday homes on the Miura peninsula of Kanagawa Prefecture.

The house is located on the harbour of a small fishing village. It has a triangular plan, with rooms on three storeys.

Each of the windows lines up with a different room and the ceiling of every room follows the profile of its window.

The architects describe the rooms as “thin tube-like spaces” with views directed towards the ocean. “We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship,” they explain.

Sliding doors and screens allow different rooms to open out to one another, plus a circular cutaway provides views between the first-floor study and the storey above.

See more holiday homes on Dezeen, including a set of apartments above a yacht house on the Crimean coastline and a weekend fishing retreat in Germany.

Here are more details from Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects:

Nowhere but Sajima

Cutting resort environment out of urban environment

Nowhere resort is the resort program that is renting out weekly vacation house. Suggesting new urban lifestyle by making shorter the distance to weekend house from standard 3 hours up to 1 hour. The environment must get close to urban when shorten the distance, the issue comes to how to cut off resort environment out of there. Therefore Nowhere but Sajima comes to build long and thin tube-like spaces that bundle them into one home unit. The tube-like spaces are facing toward the ocean and at the same time intercept the sight from the next condominium. The building is controlling both privacy and scenery.

A home for guests

Nowhere but Sajima provides a temporary ‘home’ for its guests. The weekly rental service provided by Nowhere Resort is a relatively new method of operating resort properties in Japan, and allows different tenants the opportunity to inhabit a ‘home’ on a weekly basis. While the weekly term is short compared to a standard monthly rental and long compared to a hotel stay, this in-between length accommodates a new diversity of uses of a ‘home’. Serving as a space for exhibitions, as a classroom or for wedding parties, the unit easily adapts to the imagination and invention of the tenant and in doing so also re-defines the range of activities that can take place in the ‘home’. As well as accommodating the functions of work and business, the ‘home’ again becomes the space of many life events beside the basic function of ‘inhabitance’. In acquiring a new program for use, the ‘home’ regains the richness of activity that can take place all around of life.

The building, a triangular block composed of tube-like volumes heading to the ocean, stands on a point of reclaimed land in a small fishing village. While the site meets the seawall and directly faces the sea, it is also faces other buildings across the water. To provide adequate privacy without the use of curtains, narrow tube-shaped spaces were bundled together and angled to provide openings toward the sea. The orientation of these tubes naturally blocks the line of sight from the adjacent apartments and while gazing down the length of the tube from inside only the ocean can be seen. While providing an escape from the tide of urbanism characterising what we normally call a ‘resort’, the design still maintains the key aspects of the resort experience. We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship.

Location: Yokosuka Kanagawa, JAPAN
Principal Use: HouseStructure: RC 3 stories

Site Area: 132.09 sq.m
Building Area: 63.88 sq.m
Total Floor Area: 176.65 sq.m
Max Height: 9,459 mm

Architect: Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects
Client: Nowhere resort
Structural Engineer: Akira Suzuki/ASA
Services: EOS+
Electric Services: comodo
General Contractor: Heisei Construction

The post Nowhere but Sajima by
Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Australian office Kennedy Nolan Architects used recycled bricks, concrete and rough-sawn timber to construct this courtyard house near the beach in Melbourne.

Merricks Beach House functions as a holiday home and is available to rent on a short-term basis, so Kennedy Nolan Architects was asked to create a flexible building with a structure durable enough to accommodate regularly changing occupants.

The single-storey house is arranged over three staggered levels that respond to the natural slope of the site. Rooms are laid out on a U-shaped plan, creating a large courtyard on the western side of the building.

Half of the house is given over to social spaces, on the assumption that temporary residents spend more time entertaining and are likely to have children around. To the south, a kitchen leads out to a dedicated barbecue deck, while a sunken living room opens out to the courtyard and a “bunk room” can be used as a second lounge.

Two bedrooms are lined up along the eastern side of the building and sit beside a single bathroom. There’s no need for much storage, so each room contains just the basic furnishings.

The recycled clay bricks were used to construct the lowest sections of the house’s walls and are visible both inside and outside the building. In most places they are painted white, but the architects left two unfinished circles to reveal the original colour.

Timber wraps over the tops and corners of the walls, while windows are slotted into gaps between the two different materials.

Merricks Beach House is one of several new houses in Melbourne featured on Dezeen recently. Others include a residence clad in slabs of travertine and a house with the silhouette of three little buildings. See more houses in Australia.

Photography is by Derek Swalwell.

Read on for more information from Kennedy Nolan Architects:

Merricks Beach House

This small house at Merricks Beach has been designed as a weekender that is available for short term rental. It needed to be an economical build and tough enough for the knocks of a rental market. It is two blocks from the beach. It has no views and had no existing trees on the site.

There are the usual line-up of rooms required, and in this instance it is a modest list; but what becomes a more interesting conversation is how you live differently in the weekender.

» No one needs to ‘own’ a bedroom
» No one needs to shower and leave quickly in the morning
» What you need to store is completely different
» You arrive and unpack; you leave & pack
» You spend more time with others; having guests stay over is common
» There always seems to be more children than adults!
» It is a place to enjoy each other

A courtyard typology ensures maximum privacy and access to northern winter sun, yet in this straightforward floor plan a number of ‘in-between’ spaces have been considered.

The bunk room which is located on the north edge of the internal courtyard has no doors and the king single bunks sit within their own alcove. This spacefeels dark and private and becomes a second living room when the house swells with people. Within this space thereare different places to be. There is no need for walls or doors. Light forms the threshold.

The coastal weekender is not just a summer dream. In winter the hearth is central to this house. Located between the kitchen and living room, a slow combustion fireplace defines another ‘in-between’ space. There is time here in the colder months to pull up a chair, chat or read. In summer this space dissolves into the open corner of the central deck.

A slight fall across the site allows for the house to have 3 levels. The living pit sits below the central timber deck. It is a soft floor that allows you to be low and look out over the skillion roof to the trees in the surrounding area. The pit edge becomes another of these in-between places. It is a place to sit and wide enough for a futon for an afternoon nap in the winter sun. The edge curves to become the hearth for the fire, finishing in a ledge for the television.

The materials of the build are a big part of what this house is about. It is not a precise build. It feels raw and tough. A language of masonry, concrete and timber was developed. The white painted brickwork to both interior and exterior walls is never punctured by windows. They are always walls, solid and straightforward. There are two moments where a circle has been left, telling the story of the recycled red bricks that the house is made from. The structural concrete slab, rough-sawn timber cladding and concrete block screen wall have been expressed with similar simplicity.

Location: Merricks Beach, Melbourne, Australia
Architects: Kennedy Nolan Architects
Project type: New house
Completion Date: May 2012
Site area: 850sqm
Floor area: 155sqm
Project Team: Rachel Nolan, Patrick Kennedy, Michael Macleod

The post Merricks Beach House by
Kennedy Nolan Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Chilean architect Pedro Gubbins designed this concrete residence as a rural retreat for himself and his family and has balanced it on top of a dry-stone wall (+ slideshow).

Named Omnibus House, the long and narrow residence is constructed on the side of a hill and the wall beneath it functions as a retainer against the sloping landscape.

Gubbins wanted the house to be visually linked to the outdoor spaces of its woodland location, so he designed the concrete volume with lengths of glazing stretching across its longest facades, allowing views right through the building.

“All the issues with privacy are solved because of the slope of the location,” said Jose Quintana Cabezas, an architect at Gubbins Arquitectos. “There are neighbours, but they are far away enough to not to have visual contact, plus all the tree trunks help.”

One of the most prominent features of the house is a concrete staircase that cuts through its centre, connecting the rooms on the main floor with an entrance on the storey below and a terrace on the rooftop.

Corridors run along both sides of the building, while rooms are arranged in sequence between. Glazed partitions divide the living and dining rooms, either side of the staircase, while wooden boards separate the bedrooms at the western end.

The concrete walls are exposed inside the building, plus polished concrete floors run through each room.

Santiago studio Gubbins Arquitectos also recently completed a hillside house with walls of timber and concrete.

Other recent projects in Chile include an earthquake-proof house and a hotel for stargazers. See more architecture in Chile.

Here’s some more information from Gubbins Arquitectos:

Omnibus House

Life and leisure space

To break the typical areas of an urban house; kitchen, living–dining room and dormitories, this house has a double circulation that deconstructs these areas into a set of complimentary places.

This creates a way of inhabiting that moves away from a typical urban arrangement into a more playful one.

To inhabit the exterior from within

To inhabit the exterior of a holiday house does not only imply the direct interaction with the outside of the house, but also the interaction through the house.

This has been achieved through its own structure and arrangement, allowing the possibility of re-discovering new views from the terrace-roof; from the back terrace through the living room, from the corridor or galleria by the main façade or sheltered along the houses stone base.

A sustainable architecture

The north orientation of the houses main façade (23.5 metres width by 3.1 metres height) offers the possibility of becoming a large solar collector that at night time re-emits the accumulated thermal energy gathered during the day, by its walls, concrete slabs and roof.

Materiality and construction

The use of concrete as the main material, gives a sense of mass that is necessary for relating to the context.

Its colour complements the surrounding trees and allowed the used of a large span for the roofing and the use of different textures produced by the rough sawn timber formwork sold by a local retailer.

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click for larger image

Above: roof plan – click for larger image

Above: east elevation – click for larger image

Above: west elevation – click for larger image

Above: north elevation – click for larger image

Above: south elevation – click for larger image

The post Omnibus House by
Gubbins Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.