R Sloan's Design Experiences

COMMENT: Again – the space time continuum rears its head in architecture…

CONTEMPORIST.

Simon Winstanley Architects have completed the Deepstone house in south west Scotland.

Full description after the photos….

The Deepstone House by Simon Winstanley Architects

The house is located on a spectacular site overlooking the Solway Firth in south west Scotland.
The site is a steeply sloping, former quarry in a National Scenic Area which slopes steeply in two directions from the quarry base which forms the only level ground access.

The house is conceived as a stone plinth which echos the exposed quarry face and houses the bedrooms with a garage & entrance under at the level of the quarry base. The principal living accommodation is expressed as a lightweight glazed ‘pavilion’ sitting on the solid plinth. It is set back to form an external terrace facing the sea and to reduce the apparent mass of the house.

The glazed pavilion is constructed with a steel frame and highly insulated timber infill panels clad in cedar and triple glazed windows. The roof, although thick internally to provide very high levels of insulation, is cantilevered on all sides with projecting expressed douglas fir rafters to give a thin, elegant leading edge.

The roof is finished in standing seem pre-fabricated grey zinc. The masonry base is finished in stone from re-cycled quarry waste.

The design uses the most energy efficient construction & technology where possible as part of a sustainable approach to building for the future:

• the external walls, floor and roof are insulated to a high standard and air infiltration is minimised.
• triple glazed windows with warm edge spacer bars, thermally broken frames and inert gas filled to achieve a whole window u-value of 0.7W/m2K.
• heat pump using a borehole as the ground source for the underfloor heating and hot water system with a closed combustion wood burning stove as back up.
• micro generation of renewable electricity using roof mounted Photovoltaic Panels.
• whole house heat recovery ventilation system.

The design met the client’s brief for a contemporary, energy efficient home which fully embraces the view and relates to the surrounding context and landscape.

Visit the website of Simon Winstanley Architects – here.

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from BLDGBLOG

[Image: Barry Underwood, courtesy of Johansson Projects].

The Johansson Projects gallery over in Oakland is hosting an exhibition of photographs by Barry Underwood, called Earth Engines; the show also includes a series of sound installations by artist Oliver diCicco.

[Image: Barry Underwood, courtesy of Johansson Projects].

On the one hand, Underwood’s photos document an obvious artistic intervention into the landscape, in the form of embedded and highly colorful light sources smuggled into unlikely situations; but, on the other, these images imply that Underwood has, in fact, captured a previously unrecorded natural phenomenon, an unidentified electrical presence in the trees. In other words, like some battery-powered variation on “Pickman’s Model” by H.P. Lovecraft, these earth engines could, under the right circumstances, perhaps even be naturally occurring: glowing piles of uranium, say, or strange new bioluminescent creatures, unknown to science till now.

[Images: Barry Underwood, courtesy of Johansson Projects].

The juxtapositions of spectacular landforms and immersive, forested environments with these subtle networks of lighting effects—and the accompanying idea that there might be a power source shining away somewhere deep within the natural world—even brings to mind Archigram’s design for a deep-woods electrical outlet disguised inside an artificial log.

Of course, I’m also reminded of an old Paul Simon song: These are the days of lasers in the jungle.

[Image: Barry Underwood, courtesy of Johansson Projects].

So is it a Will-o’-the-Wisp or stray camper’s light? A radioactive spill or an art project?

Produce a catalog of these sorts of strange lights seen in the woods, throughout history, and you’ve got a new field of study: electrical folklore.

[Image: Barry Underwood, courtesy of Johansson Projects].

In any case, the show opens up this weekend, on November 21; stop by the gallery’s website for more details.

COMMENT:
- MONEY – SPACE – INSPIRATION -

Work like this makes me wish I had those three things…

It also makes me wish materials where lighter and stronger so the architect could make the structures stretch as effortlessly as the stroke of their pen.

via ArchDaily.

Architects:BARK Design Architects
Location: Queensland, Australia
Builder: Wall’s Quality Homes
Structural Engineer: Meecham Engineers
Site Area: 727 sqm
Existing House Area: 212 sqm
alterations and Aditions Area: 48 sqm
Project year: 2009
Photographs: Lindy Atkin & Scott Burrows

The Marcus Beach house celebrates a natural, coastal setting providing its occupants with an inextricable relationship to the landscape and sensitive surrounding environment. The dwelling explores lightness, filtering natural breezes, layers of transparency and integrating indoor / outdoor spaces within dynamic patterns of light and shadow, being a simple frame to enable a contemporary sustainable lifestyle to unfold.

Whilst feeling like a ‘beach house’ sited 250 meters away from Marcus Beach, the basic ‘pavilion’ plan was sketched out in the sand during an early site visit: a simple diagram of two pavilions placed either side of a venerable 100 year old Moreton Bay Ash that takes centre stage to the scale, proportions and life of the house around it. The pavilions sit lightly on the site and are linked by a transparent bridge in an arrangement that opens all the spaces to the light, breeze and garden views of the north. The garden is protected by a perimeter wall wrapped in endemic vines providing an acoustic ‘green’ buffer to a nearby busy road.

Floor plan

On approach from the street, the sloping terrain naturally guides an axial timber boardwalk under a simple timber pergola structure arriving in the courtyard opposite the Moreton Bay Ash. The main pavilion to the west accommodates living spaces focused around a double height deck space overlooking the swimming pool and northern garden. The Master Bedroom suite is accessed via a polycarbonate clad stair tower that is by day a contemplative space and by night, a lantern. The Moreton Bay Ash casts shadows onto the polycarbonate further animating the edges of the courtyard and bringing the landscape inside the house. The recent additions of a study ‘pop out,’ enclosed passage link below the bridge, Laundry and Powder room further animate the edges of the courtyard space whilst responding to the needs of its new occupants.

The house is open and light and possesses simple sustainable design principles to passively defend the occupants from the elements. Windows and doors are strategically positioned to capture the prevailing breezes whilst roof overhangs are generous protecting the house from direct summer sunlight. Air conditioning has not been installed in the Marcus Beach House nor is it desired. Artificial lighting is kept to a minimum due to the generous amount and position of glazing, particularly facing north. The roof over the Master Bedroom pavilion rises to the north providing a band of high level, operable, clerestory glazing capturing daylight and allowing any warm air to escape, setting up an effective ‘stack effect’ natural cooling process.

The connection between the deck and living spaces is dynamic and direct. As the heart of the house, the covered double height outdoor room is actively used all year round as dappled sunlight is filtered through a timber batten screen hung below the roof structure. Indoor and outdoor realms are connected through an interlocking series of alcoves and nooks like a low edge deck seat and reading nook pop-out located off the stair landing. The courtyard and Moreton Bay Ash are a focal point in which almost all rooms within the dwelling enjoy a connection.