Forty Three - Space is a measured quantity but what you do with it is infinity.
The original structure remains intact whilst upended through the 45° and set into the landscape. On entry, uninterrupted floor to rooftop gallery views arc above you, a space balancing 50’s modernism with today’s young classicists. Built and optimised for Virtual Reality using VRSketch and an HTV Vive.
Thank you for a fun weekend with this awesome competition and it would be a pleasure to partake again in the future!
Ciao, Luke
The initial shape was transformed into a modern cabin in the woods.
The design process started with defining where my site was…I saw it just next to a lake and suspended among the trees. Most of the big windows are facing North because I located the site in New Zealand (where I am living), and this orientation ensures natural light in the living areas throughout the day.
The challenge asks for a design starting from a shell that consists in two rectangular boxes on top of each other, each one being extended by a small protuberance. In very general terms, I interpreted the shell you sent us as a “box within another box” theme. The two protrusions were seen as a porch and the spot to place a stairway. Taking a pragmatic stance I decided to design a house or perhaps a second home, as the footprint is very small.
The essential requirement of the exercise was to keep the initial walls and volume, as if it was an unfinished building that one must take into account in a new design. Moving or removing walls and slabs was not permitted. The goal was to start from that shell and make something out of it. One could add any small elements but no new walls or slabs. The use of the new building could be anyone and there should be an interior.
The total area of the existing structure was 146m2, being 100 m2 on the ground.
The house proper occupies the inner box, the exterior one being treated as a permeable layer whose role is to protect the interior from excessive sunlight. The space between the two layers can be occupied by plants, verandas or small service spaces (laundry, washroom, entry hall) as is the case.
The ground floor is one single space dedicated to living, eating and cooking activities. On the top floor there are two bedrooms with their respective bathrooms. Off the main bedroom there is a balcony that also gives access to the garden created on top of the lower box.
Outside there are two other structures: a car porch embedded in the terrain and a pool at the site’s lower level.
A very interesting exercise, in which the limitations open the doors to invention. All in all, lots of fun doing this fast exercise.
Last Friday will enjoying FYW Falling Water live event TheOnlyAaron said he needed to check our entry and I realize that it was not well splained at all… so lets try to solve it.
I´m a trained architect and when I first show the chalenge it caught mi eye because it proposes almost the opposite we usually do so we jumped on it. Our goal was to make the most from the form given and try to use it as an opportunity to show our ideas. We focused on the space itself and the way yo experience it. We took the idea of house as it basic concept. A house is a shelter.
We selected to work on a land from the FLW Galesburg Country Homes and make it a proposal of a place to do nothing (enjoy architecture light and color)
The circular shape give us the opportunity to make the proposal work as a complete project. We wanted the space to have no boundaries. You wouldn’t know if you are inside or outside.
We buried the first floor and make big patios to give it natural light and control the views (force the views to the sky)
The second floor is suspended by the addition of a collection of pillars and beams.
The added roof give it a strong image and the opportunity to add vertical elements with different colors that make the structure change colors while you are going around it.
The three spaces are connected spatially but you need to pass througt the garden to go from one to another which makes the garden part of the experience.
We have upload the file again as we realized that the moire efect of the facade works better hidding the lines and also the file of the secuence in case it can help someone to make their own diagrams.
Well this has been a real distraction but time to get back to real projects. Instead of aiming for perfection this is more like a proof of concept for a slightly wacky perspective of the challenge.
Really struggled to embed my model so here’s the link instead Incan House
Here is my entry to the Finish this House Challenge. It is a house to shelter in place and is meant to be serene and minimalistic. I wanted large doors in the back to bring the outside in. I enjoyed designing and furnishing the house and its interiors. A big challenge for me was reducing the size of the file in order to upload it - I did not realize uploading to the 3D warehouse had a file size limit.House Where Covid-19 Isn’t
Sketchup is incredibly handy even for architects working in the classical tradition! Here’s my entry, executed in a Belle Epoque/ Beaux Arts-ish style, which may function as some sort of monumental Pavillion. My main focus was on finding harmonious ways of resolving the tension in the original model resulting from the conflation of various axes and volumes. I hope the result demonstrates how a new medium like SketchUp can be used to make beautiful buildings with all the charm of analogue architectural media.
