Hasta La Ideas

Wooden furniture forms sections of staircases at this house in Japan by Tato Architects (+ slideshow).

Japanese studio Tato Architects incorporated items of furniture into the circulation and structure of the three-storey house in Itami, a city in Hyōgo Prefecture.

“Architecture and furniture are mingled,” said architect Yo Shimada. “I keep trying to create freedom in rooms as if all of [the furniture] is just randomly placed and used by chance.”

Steps up from the middle floor are created by solid drawers that appear to be pulled out from a dresser, which can still store items inside. A low coffee table provides the first tread.

The furniture fills the gaps between an otherwise white metal staircase ascending to the top floor.

“I always think the way of dealing with stairs is important in houses, especially in small ones, said Shimada. “One of the general methods is to place a stair at the middle of one room allocating functions on both sides.”

This central floor functions as an open-plan living space, with the slightly raised seating area connected to the kitchen via two small tables.

A small toilet is housed in what looks like a freestanding cupboard.

A second staircase leads down to ground level, descending beneath the dining table and through the top of a wardrobe, with the final steps also containing drawers.

The main bedroom and bathroom are located on this lower floor, either side of the entrance and stairs.

With a slanted roof at one end, the top storey has spare room for an office and guest bedroom plus a small terrace.

Corrugated metal clads the outer walls of the house, which are each set back half a metre from the edge of the plot to comply with Japanese planning regulations for dense urban areas.

Tato Architects also designed public toilets that comprise a single curved wall sheltered beneath a gabled roof and converted a warehouse in Osaka into a house where residents can climb up the walls.

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Here’s the project description sent to us by the architects:

Widening interspace to utilise

Many of the requests to us for designing a house are accompanied with a prerequisite of ensuring a house for a nuclear family at an extremely subdivided lot, to which we cannot easily apply the manners of architecture having been accumulated for long time in Japan. We repeated trials and errors while designing as we think we are in the formative period for a new manner.

This time was not the exception as well. For this level of density of urban houses, where outer walls of the adjoining houses do not touch each other, the civil law demands 500 millimetres setbacks of outer walls to form interspace of 1000 millimetres in width in-between those.

We have kept thinking if it is used more effectively. In this project, we gave 400 millimetres more setbacks from the boundary line of the north eastern adjacent land. As a result, there was 1400 millimetres wide interspace as a passage, which was 900 millimetres in width from the border of the adjacent plot, utilised by placed an entrance in the middle of the side wall faced to the interspace, which realised to minimise space for routing in the house.

The setback ensured the eave as high as about nine metres avoiding the north side slant line. Non-structural walls were pushed out outward providing space for closets etc. Accordingly, it provided bigger space containing facilities such as a toilet than as it looked from interior space like furniture, which brought ambiguity in perception of space.

Architecture and furniture

When I have the honour of seeing an architect-designed house, I sometimes feel as if design furniture is telling messages. I wonder if it is right to summarise by saying “respect the original space and don’t bring any unnecessary things”, but it seems almost like a strong desire as much as to say not to fill the space with anything does not deserve it. Although I cannot say I don’t have such desire at all, I still aim to create space where a variety of things can be brought in and used in everyday life much more freely.

In this house, architectural elements such as stairs, a laundry space, closets, hand rails and toilets are made as if those are furniture. Except for those, there are only floors. As such, architecture and furniture are mingled and those meanings become relative each other, in which way I keep trying to create freedom in rooms as if all of those are just randomly placed and used by chance.

Like choreography notes

I always think the way of dealing with stairs is important in houses, especially in small ones. One of the general methods is to place a stair at the middle of one room allocating functions on both sides. Although it maximises usable area, it leaves the question if it brings rich spatial experience to live seeing every inch of the house and a stair all the time.

The ceiling of the dining room in this house is 3776 millimetres in height, which is determined to make the space under the staircase landing usable as routing. By making it extremely thin, the rest of the height was divided into 1880 millimetres downward and 1850 millimetres upward. Although those are tight dimensions, you can go through between two layers minding your head.

I think it is favourable for a house to have such a scale of physical bodies. Therefore, the dining table was placed over the stair between the ground floor and the first floor leaving space for residents to pass under it. Bodies appear and disappear under the table as residents go up and down the stair.

Once you slide the entrance door and slip into inside of furniture, you reach under the dining table, where faced to a big wall receiving sun light coming through the south window. You see the white wall softly lit from the north as you step on the small stool. To the second floor, you step on the sofa, furniture like a drawer, and the thin stair. At every steps toward upstairs, light conditions change as the direction and the size of space change. Stairs as choreography for spatial experience of this small, thin space.

Structure

As the site is located in the back of a narrow cul-de-sac and carrying-in by vehicle was limited, the structure with light materials such as 100 by 100 millimetres H steel sections for columns and beams, braces with round bars, 75-millimetre deck plates for the floor construction was applied. Those resulted in reducing the amount of steel materials, and the total construction cost to about as same as that of a wooden house.

The horizontal stiffness of floors was acquired with horizontal bracings of six-millimetre flat bars and 50-millimetre squared tie beams beneath concave parts of the deck plates. Floors on different levels were fixed to the columns at both ends so that the continuity of stiffness between those was still kept.

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Tato Architects 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.

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by Ábaton appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch architects Jetty and Maarten Min have completed their own house and studio in North Holland with an arched rooftop, tiled walls and exposed tree-trunk columns (+ slideshow).

Jetty and Maarten Min, of Bergen office Min2, designed the three-storey Dune House on a coastal dune in Bergen and used unfinished timber, clay tiles and curved profiles to help the building fit in with its rural setting.

“An important design topic was to connect the form and the materialisation of the house with the place where it is situated,” they explained. “The high tall form had to fit in the dune landscape. During the design process this form became one of a dune or of a windswept group of trees sloping along with the worn landscape near the sea.”

Offering a twist on the traditional mansard roof, the house is wrapped on three sides by a skin of clay tiles, which were designed by Jetty Min with bespoke dimensions.

“These tiles give the impression of pot-lid shelves,” said the architects. “The brown/purple appearance of the British clay with its rough finish has to visually match the bark of the surrounding firs.”

Horizontal slices through this skin create a series of sea-facing windows on the north elevation, while a double-height window frames a view of the dune landscape to the south.

Inside, the house contains studio spaces on its ground floor, while the living areas comprise a two-storey loft above.

“One of [our] wishes has always been to live on the upper storeys because of the marvellous views of the sea and the dune area,” said the architects.

Kitchen, living and dining areas occupy a larger open-plan space on the first floor, surrounded by the chunky Douglas fir columns. Arched wooden joists are visible overhead, plus a boxy poplar staircase leads up to a mezzanine bedroom.

A similar staircase links the house with the studio below, which features a generous workspace, a meeting and conference room and a library. The houses’s bathroom is also located on this floor.

Poured concrete was used for the flooring on the two main levels, while the uppermost floor is covered with a carpet made from seaweed.

Other Dutch houses completed recently include a residence with a thatched exterior and a renovated townhouse with a triple-height kitchen and a spiral staircase.

See more houses in the Netherlands »
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Here’s a project description from Jetty and Maarten Min:

The Dune House of the architects Jetty and Maarten Min, Bergen aan Zee

Min2 bouw-kunst is a Dutch architecture office, located in Bergen, in the north of Holland, at the sea. The work of the office is a co-design between architecture and art.

The owners of the office designed their own house in the dune area of Bergen aan Zee (NH). An important design topic was to connect the form and the materialisation of the house with the place where it is situated.

Design

The building enjoys a dominant position on a dune crest, alongside a local road, but it is almost invisible because of altitude differences and of tall pine trees, guarding the house closely. The house faces on the other side of the dune a drinking water treatment area. From here it marks the landscape, even from a large distance. They therefore have chosen for a strong “object-quality”.

Handling the building plan as a starting point within the zoning plan and the existing building regulations was also a challenge.The admissible constructing surface was 20 x 8 metres, with a gutter height of 3 metres. The ridge height was not indicated and therefore a ridge height of max. 15 metres was possible. These proportions made it possible to build the house vertically, an opportunity achieved by realising three high storey.

Because of the positive reactions from the local government they succeeded quite well in such vertical design. By solving this and other similar problems, the plan became more and more exciting.

One of the main concerns was that, in its appearance, the high tall form had to fit in the dune landscape. During the design process this form became one of a dune or of a windswept group of trees sloping along with the worn landscape near the sea.

The openings in the roof surface of the storey were designed from within: at the sea side as horizontal window strips and at the dune side as a huge window, where it is possible to imagine oneself in the midst of the dune landscape. The flat facade on the eastside eventually allows for a lift and balconies.

Materialisation

For quite some time they have been looking for the appropriate materials on the outside. Because the house is only 300 metres from the sea, they took the logical decision to choose for natural, sustainable and low maintenance materials. They called this approach a low-tech approach.

For the oblique facade and roof skin they thoroughly searched for an existing material that would fit into the rough romantic scenery. In the end, Jetty came up with the idea to design herself a tile that would fit the desired agenda. Following the remarkable Kolumba brick (Petersen Tegl) which was to be used for the dressing of concrete columns, a long ceramic flat tile was developed of 53 centimetres long, 17 centimetres high and 4 centimetres thick.

These tiles give the impression of pot lid shelves, but ones which are much more low maintenance. The brown/purple appearance of the British clay with its rough finish has to visually match the bark of the surrounding firs. Thanks to all these characteristics, the building perfectly fits into its surrounding environment.

This developing process took one and a half year. It has also been helped by the excellent cooperation of the professionals of Petersen. The roof tile, now called “Athene Noctua” (in German: Steinkauz), has now been included in the collection of Petersen.

The finishing of the eaves has been carried out in zinc and has been pre-treated against ionisation, which beautifully matches the tiles. The untreated wooden frames are made of Iroko, FSC approved and carefully handpicked to have the longest parts, in order to avoid gluing as much as possible. The reason to make use of untreated wood at this location stems from its low maintenance aspect, which also fits into the natural surroundings.

Where, if necessary, a lift can be build, the concrete stabilisation drives have been closed with untreated western red cedar parts.

The building facade has a timber frame with a high insulation value. Because of this starting point they could easily design the bent and beveled forms as a basis. The basis of these elements consists of whitewood collar beams with multiplex sheets. These are built in several prefab parts, made in the workshop, for a smooth progression of the building process and to generate as less disturbance in the protected green area as possible.

Interior

The low-tech approach continues also on the inside of the house. They wanted the two floors as one big, rudimentary finished space, which can then be used as a flexible living space, a new loft.

One of the wishes has always been to live on these upper storey because of the marvellous views of the sea and the dune area. In the penultimate version the starting point was a house with columns to be built above an existing bungalow: a second house above the first. After deliberation with the constructional engineer, it was finally decided to demolish the existing house because of the poor condition of its foundation. The carrying grid with its column structure emerged from this history.

They were also inspired by warehouses, by the farmhouses in the north of Holland, and by translating the Maison Domino by Le Corbusier into a handy craft level.

By applying Douglas firs with bark, they wanted to bring the effect of windswept trees around the house also into the interior, but in an abstract way. The floor of the first storey has been made as a wooden prefabricated element, hanging between the Douglas firs. Galvanised steel coupling agents have been designed. The concrete elements in sight are untreated.

On the ground floor are storage, studio, bathing room, library, working room and conference room. The inner walls and doors on the ground floor are non bearing, so to be as flexible as possible, and made of ecoplex and mdf. Sometimes a book cast is also acting as the separating wall between spaces.

The stairs have been placed into the space as loose elements. They are made of fast growing poplar, so as to be as environmentally friendly as possible. This kind of wood is soft but very dense, and has no knots. The beautiful light colour does not turn yellow, so it can remain untainted. Only the stair steps can use some extra protection.

The floor finishing consists of poured concrete and the hanging wooden floor slab between the trees has been covered with sea weed carpet.

High-tech and sustainability

They aimed to achieve as high as possible value of the materials and the goal was to reach a Rc of 5,0. The choice was made for superior insulating glass with as less as possible colour fading taken into account. For the studio we choose for colourless glass, in order not to have our work with colours influenced by the green radiation of glass.

The ventilation system is on demand controlled and offers smart solutions for the intake of fresh air. A vacuum cleaning system has been installed for a better interior environment. The domestic system is a basic one, but can be enlarged in future. The electricity supplies are provided in floor ducts.

In relation to the energy supply they do not make use of a natural gas installation. They use an air pump (because of the location on a dune), and glass vacuum tubes providing the heating – or cooling – of the floors and hot water. The next step which is in preparation is the installation of an Energy Ball (wind energy) for the generation of electrical power.

They very closely follow the evolution of sustainable power generation and very soon interesting products will emerge on the market which also will be aesthetically interesting. Those new products can be added in the present layout.

At this moment they monitor their power consumption to see which amendments will be necessary in order to reach the best values.

The designer as contractor

They carefully searched for the parties best suited to build specific parts. In this way is was quite natural to be working with wood and consult specialists as boat builders and woodworkers. They experienced that, with this attitude, they could inspire and stimulate other people. This is the basis for further developments.

They now live in the house and decisions concerning the interior, functions and forms are just starting to emerge. Piece by piece they handle the interior the same way as they handled the building process.

The post The Dune House
by Min2 appeared first on Dezeen.

Our second project this week from British studio Simon Conder Associates is a timber-clad house built around a nineteenth-century railway carriage on Dungeness beach in Kent, England.

Simon Conder Associates designed El Ray beach house as the summer home for a family, who had previously lived in just the old carriage.

“We were asked by our clients to increase the accommodation area by approximately 50 percent and dramatically improve the environmental performance of the house,” said Simon Conder.

Completed in 2008, the house is located between two other shacks near the Dungeness power station. It features a bell-shaped plan, incorporating a sheltered front terrace and a pair of recessed courtyards that are protected from the prevailing winds.

The railway carriage is contained at the centre of house and accommodates a kitchen within its worn shell. A living room surrounds and opens out to all three terraces.

Different tones give a striped pattern to the hardwood exterior cladding. There are also ramps leading into the house from the surface of the beach.

A flat sloping roof acts as an observation deck with sweeping 360-degree views of the surrounding beach and ocean.

The walls, roof and floor are insulated using recycled newspaper, meaning very little energy is needed for heating, lights and ventilation.

In extremely cold weather, electric heating is powered by a rooftop wind turbine to heat beneath the floorboards in the two bedrooms and bathroom.

Simon Conder more recently completed a pair of timber-clad houses built on a steep hill in the town Porthtowan.

Other seaside houses in the UK include a shingle-clad house elsewhere on Dungeness beach, a small wooden house on the tip of the Isle of Skye and an experimental beach house at Maldon. See more British houses »

Here’s a project description from the architects:

El Ray, Dungeness Beach, Kent

Dungeness beach is a classic example of ‘Non-Plan’ and the houses that populate the beach have developed through improvisation and bodge. This scheme develops this tradition in a way that responds to the drama and harshness of the landscape.

El Ray is part of a group of five beach houses located immediately to the east of the huge Dungeness A power station. The original house consisted of a 19th century railway carriage with flimsy lean tos to the north and south. It was in extremely poor condition and too small to accommodate our clients and their growing family. We were asked by our clients to increase the accommodation area by approximately 50%, and dramatically improve the environmental performance of the house.

The new house incorporates the old railway carriage inside a highly insulated timber structure. The carriage forms the centre point of the main living area and accommodates the kitchen. A fully glazed southern elevation gives views out over the channel and a series of smaller slot windows on the other elevations give focused views of the adjacent lighthouse, coastguard station and nuclear power station.

The sloping roof deck acts as an observation platform with extraordinary 360 degree views of the beach and the sea. The plan incorporates two courtyards to provide shelter from the constant wind.

Environmental Performance

Environmental control is achieved through a combination of super insulation, passive solar gain, cross ventilation and a wind turbine.

The high levels of insulation in the walls, roof and floor ensure that heat loss from the building is minimal and very little energy is required for heating, lighting and ventilation. External glazing consists of a combination of double-glazed, low ‘E’, argon- filled frameless fixed lights and thermally-broken, aluminium sliding doors. The structural timber frame is constructed from lightweight engineered timber I-Joists, braced inside and out with a sheathing material manufactured entirely from wood waste. The insulation between the I-joists and studs is made from recycled newspaper. The external cladding and decking is made from an FSC certified hardwood called Itauba and the internal wall linings, floors and all joinery are constructed from FSC certified birch plywood.

A canopy projects out over the south deck to shade the living areas from the high summer sun, but allows the low winter sun to warm the house. When necessary a wood-burning stove, using drift wood from the beach, is used to supplement the passive solar gain in the winter months and in extremely cold conditions electric under floor heating, powered by the wind turbine, will heat the two bedrooms and the bathroom.

It is anticipated that the during the year the wind turbine will generate more electricity than the house will consume, meaning that the house can be run at carbon negative. The client intends to sell any surplus electricity generated by the wind turbine back to the National Grid.

Architects: Simon Conder Associates
Design Team: Simon Conder, Pippa Smith
Structural Engineer: Fluid Structures
Environmental Engineer: ZEF
Contractor: Ecolibrium Solutions
Construction cost per m2: £1,780.00
Completed: July 2008

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by Simon Conder Associates appeared first on Dezeen.

British firm Simon Conder Associates has built two wooden houses into the side of a steep hill in the English coastal village of Porthtowan (+ slideshow).

The client asked Simon Conder Associates for a family home and a smaller building housing an artist’s studio and guest apartment on a site overlooking a beach on the north Cornish coast.

Two existing houses were removed to make way for the new buildings, which are partly buried in the hill to avoid obstructing views from properties higher up the slope.

This steep incline created buildings with a single storey facing the road, but two storeys opening out towards the sea.

Large windows on the southern elevations help to bring natural light into both buildings. They’re shielded by deep verandahs that reduce heat gain in the summer but allow winter light to penetrate and warm the interiors.

The verandahs also provide balconies on the upper ground floor with views along the coast.

Other additions include a first-floor courtyard, accessible from three sides, and a large open-plan living room with a central wood-burning stove.

Other houses we’ve published recently include a residential development built on the edge of a steep valley in Sweden and a concrete house that staggers down a hillside in Greece. See more houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Paul Smoothy.

The architects sent us this project description:

Two Passive Solar Gain Houses in Porthtowan

The Site

These two new houses are located on a dramatic, south-facing hillside overlooking the beach in the village of Porthtowan on the north Cornish coast. The site has particularly fine views down the coast to St Ives. Surprisingly, for such a prominent and relatively remote coastal site, the new houses are surrounded by a suburban estate of bungalows dating from the 1950s.

The Clients

The two new houses are for the same client, a couple with a teenage son. The larger house, Malindi, will be used as the main family home.

The smaller house, Providence, will accommodate an artist’s studio at upper ground floor level and an apartment for visitors and family at lower ground floor level. Both houses replace much smaller and substandard houses owned by the client.

The Design Solution

To reduce the impact of the new houses on the landscape, and avoid blocking the view from the houses further up the hillside, both houses are built into the 1 in 7 slope of the hillside, so the houses are single storey on the road side and two storey on the seaward side.

The two adjacent sites face south and this orientation has been used to create two passive solar gain houses to minimise both the use of fossil fuels and energy costs. This has been achieved partly by fully glazing the southern elevations of the two houses and partly by using highly insulated, high mass construction for the remainder of the two houses.

To minimise the possibility of overheating in summer the glazed southern elevation is set back behind hardwood verandahs, which provide full width balconies at upper ground floor level and protect the interiors from the high summer sun, while allowing the much lower winter sun to penetrate deep into the two houses.

The external cladding, roof decking and verandah structures are all made from FSC certified hardwood which has been left unfinished to weather naturally to a silvery grey.

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by Simon Conder Associates appeared first on Dezeen.