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Posts Tagged ‘House’

Don’t Throw Stones: Modern Glass House is Super Sharp

06 Jan

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

modern glass house 1

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, or forget that they’re literally living in a fishbowl, if they have any modesty at all. Designed for a steep plot in Zurich, this ultramodern angular residence by L3P Architekten boasts all-glass, entirely transparent exterior walls that give the outside world more than a glimpse into the life of the family who lives there.

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Naturally, you can’t be too concerned about privacy if you live in a house like this, but the architects have taken a few steps to provide a few spaces that prying eyes can’t see. One is setting the house into the earth to create a ground floor that’s partially walled in black exposed concrete, accessible from a subterranean entrance that opens onto the hillside.

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The concrete continues throughout the interior, blocking off certain areas of the home without disturbing the views provided by all of that shimmering glass and adding a sense of weight and balance. The interior walls, floors and ceilings are all hewn in this solid material for contrast.

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“This work on the vineyard slope copies the logic of a vine: a supporting middle wall, platforms and non-bearing windows follow the structure of the stem, the trunk and the hanging fruit,” says architect Boris Egli.

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A Tree Grows Inside This Modern Cylindrical Glass House

Would you give up all your privacy in order to live in a spectacular glass cylinder with a tree growing up the center? Perhaps the secluded forest location …
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Windowless House of Glass: Solid Walls Hide Invisible Floors

In a surreal reversal of modern architectural convention, this Vertical Glass House trades a tradition of solid horizontals and clear verticals for an opaque …
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House of Glass: Cabin Facade from Antique Window Frames

On an unusual kind of cross-country road trip, this couple visited garage sales, antique dealers and added these to other roadside finds, all toward the quest …
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Residential Rollercoaster: Buyers Ride Through House for Sale

18 Dec

[ By Steph in Design & Guerilla Ads & Marketing. ]

roller coaster ride 5

Perhaps ‘roller coaster ride’ isn’t the most desirable term that a seller would want potential buyers using to describe the property they’re showing, but in this case, it might not be such a bad thing. Dutch brokerage firm Verder Met Wonen literally takes prospective residents on a ride through the home on a specially-installed roller coaster in single-rider wooden cars.

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house rollercoaster 1

The ride starts in the driveway, descending into the basement and then hoisting viewers up the stairs to see the first level.  It then rises to the second floor, winds through the bedrooms and plummets out an upper window into the backyard.

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A 90-second promotional clip gives us a glimpse at the journey, even if we can’t take it ourselves. No word on whether the stunt has helped the home’s chances of selling, and it’s certainly not giving prospective buyers a lot of time to mull over each space, but it’s certainly getting the firm some attention.

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Vertical Garage: Hide Cars Below or Lift Your Ride to the Sky

There are all kinds of houses designed to showcase your prized luxury vehicle or custom cruiser, but few can boast so blatant a mechanism to quite literally …
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Tourism Tech: Audio Tour App Takes You on a Tram Ride

Avoid the crowds of tourists and take your own tour with the Tram Sightseeing App. Available only for Gothenburg, the app gives you a virtual tour using GPS.
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Abandoned Power Station Transformed into a Roller Coaster

London’s iconic Battersea Power Station, which has been abandoned since the 1980s, could turn into a theme park and museum in this wild rollercoaster concept.
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Herringbone House: Tiny Tokyo Residence Split into 7 Levels

29 Nov

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

tiny house japan 1

Measuring just 280 square feet, this tiny house in Tokyo by architecture firm Flathouse includes a public biscuit shop on the first level and manages to fit a lot of function into an irregularly shaped footprint by taking advantage of vertical space. Built on a system of parallelograms that create a herringbone pattern both inside and out, the home has no interior walls, dividing the rooms with a series of staggered platforms instead.

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For privacy-obsessed Westerners, this may seem like a strange move, but interior walls aren’t seen as a necessary part of a home in many areas of Japan. In this case, eliminating these dividers keeps a small space open and encourages rapid movement from one area of the home to the next. The shop owner can quickly move from the personal areas of the home to serve a customer on the first floor, and back again.

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All levels are connected by a central staircase. The dining room, living area and private rooms are all set on small platforms with barely enough room for the furniture required in each. The shop and bathroom are tucked into a concrete basement level, while the rest of the home is lined in a light and airy larch plywood.

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This approach uses the full available height of the property, creating a comfortable space despite the restrictive dimensions of the plot, a common architectural challenge in Tokyo.

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Rotating Rooms: Push a Button, Change Your House Layout

Maybe in the summer, you’d prefer cooler, shadier lodgings, and in the winter, you wish you could extend your living space out into the sun. The lucky …
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Split & Slide: Modular Dividers Make 3 Rooms in Single Space

Complimenting a flexible open area on one side of this apartment are a series of suspended separators that provide storage but also move along rails, opening …
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Center of Infinity: 360-Degree House Defies Dimensionality

Forget floors, get over familiar geometries and start really thinking in three dimensions if you want to understand this futuristic and multifaceted home …
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Zombie-Powered Vertical Farm: Post-Apocalyptic Safe House

31 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

zombie brains

Strangely sustainable, this towering haven is designed to turn the energy of the undead toward a positive purpose, using zombies to turn a turbine in order to provide both power and water pressure in case of a viral apocalypse.

zombie ranch design details

As part of the Zombie Safe House competition, this Zombie Ranch entry goes above and beyond simply protecting people from risen corpses, turning their lust for blood and brains into a baited trap to keep life going above the ground.

zombie powered safe house

The slow-moving zombies push a twisting turbine that sends water up for drinking and farming on a second story – residents occupy the top level, presumably for an extra layer of safety and to get some distance from the groaning hordes.

zombie design raised lowered

A series of spiral staircases and drawbridges provide ways to cut off attacks on each floor as well as a means of lifting the entire structure further skyward to make it less accessible when a swarm wanders through.

zombie ranch above below

Each zombie-resistant tower is designed to be fully self-sufficient so survivors can remain aloft indefinitely, leaving them free to enjoy the end of the world in relative luxury.

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12 Futuristic Finalists: Zombie Safe House Competition

When the zombie apocalypse begins, you could be safe in one of these 12 heavily fortified house designs, finalists in the Zombie Safe House Competition.
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Bunkers Ours: The Safe House is an Open & Shut Case

The Safe House by KWK Promes Architects adjusts its exterior to meet all your security needs, from tool-borrowing neighbors to a full-on zombie apocalypse.
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At World’s End: 25 Post-Apocalyptic Artistic Visions

These 25 sobering examples of post-apocalyptic art serve to remind the living that what remains are more often ruins.
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Bath House: Abandoned Public Restroom Turned Private Home

08 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

deserted loo pre conversion

The ultimate fixer-upper, real estate rarely looks so unpromising as this London dump did – thankfully, one architect saw potential beyond these potties, despite the place truly looking like shi… well, er, bad. In the end, the before-and-after shots speak for themselves – few buildings can boast such total turnarounds, converting crappy ruins into shining tur…, er, digs.

deserted public restroom uk

converted skylit underground condo

Located under the Crystal Palace Parade, these lavatories constitute just 600 square feet of space – not much by the standards of some cities but relative huge for England’s densely-packed capital.

deserted underground bathroom stalls

deserted london renovation project

Located by architect Laura Clark after just finishing up at the Glasgow School of Art, the strange site seemed a perfect challenge for an aspiring architectural designer wanting to take up residence in London.

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deserted amazing subterranean home

At the intersection of various municipalities and built nearly a century ago, getting approvals turned out to be painfully difficult – even establishing who owned the property proved problematic. Eventually, though, it went up for sale and she was able to secure and start working to convert it.

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deserted underground home skylights

The results of her efforts: a compelling home constructed for under 65,000 Pounds (around $ 100,000 USD), surprisingly open, spacious and light-filled compared to its cavernous original state. Along the way, the architect was able to reuse some old materials in the new construction and save some existing walls as well.

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Rad Restroom Designs: 15 Actually-Awesome Public Potties

Little architectural effort is typically spent on public restrooms – they’re perfunctory, with looks reflecting embarrassment about the functions …
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House Turned Inside Out: All Walls Cut, Flipped & Reattached

An ambitious art project, the House Turned Inside Out peals away facades, those outer layers of mystery physically surrounding abandoned buildings, and reveals …
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Rebuilding Infrastructure: Viaduct turned Holiday Home

An abandoned viaduct in southern Italy with stunning vistas of the mountains and sea will become a vertical village of stacked, cantilevered vacation homes.
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Extreme Cliff Living: Modular House Dangles Precariously

06 Sep

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

Modscape Cliff House Main

Only the uppermost portion of this ambitious five-level home is visible when approaching from land, preserving the views for others and making for one dramatic way to live adjacent to the sea. Cliff House by Modscape Concept is a response to the demand in Australia for residences to be built along extreme parcels of rocky land on the coast.

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Modscale Cliff House 3

The clients approached Modscape to explore options for a vacation home on the southwest coast of Victoria, where they own a piece of land that could prove a challenge for more conventional architectural solutions.

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The architects took inspiration from the way barnacles cling to the hull of a ship, hanging the home off the side of the cliff instead of perching it at the edge. This configuration makes it feel like an extension of the cliff face, opening up incredible views of the water.

Modscape Cliff House 1

The prefabricated, modular house would be anchored to the cliff using engineered steel pins, with entrance through a carport on the top floor.

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Hover Houses: 12 Cliff-Clinging Homes with a View

Swim to the edge of an infinity pool that feels as if it’s going to pour right out into the sea, or stand on a glass-walled balcony hanging off a …
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Stunning Houses: 7 Precarious Mountain & Cliff Dwellings

Some of the world’s most precarious houses and villages perched on mountains and cliffs – don’t step too close to the edge.
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17 Extreme Real Houseboats & House Boat Design Ideas

This collection spans the extremes of design and brute-force ingenuity: from the obscenely luxurious to the absurdly simple.
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Rotating Rooms: Push a Button, Change Your House Layout

29 Jul

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

Rotating Rooms 1

Maybe in the summer, you’d prefer cooler, shadier lodgings, and in the winter, you wish you could extend your living space out into the sun. The lucky people who live in the three-story Sharifi-Ha house in Tehran, by design firm nextoffice, can transform the layout of their house in various cool ways with the simple push of a button.

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Three mobile wooden volumes containing different living spaces – a guest room, home office and dining room – can be aligned flush against the fixed part of the home, rotated so the glassed-in ends face a variety of angles, and extended in or out telescopically.

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When the movable rooms are facing straight out, they open up terraces on each level, bringing more daylight into the rooms that are deeper within the home.

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When the occupants want more privacy and a sense of coziness, the home closes up, essentially going into either extroverted or introverted mode along with the humans who live there.

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Slices of Home: Modular Mobile House-Shaped Micro-Rooms

Spatial separation can be as much about a feeling of enclosure as a physical divider, like this set of portable lounge structures that provide a semi-secluded …
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Elastic Living: Sliding Shelves Hide Modular Rooms

Slide out the kitchen or bedroom when you need it and file it away when you’re done with this clever transforming modular interior series.
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Lollipop House: Striped and Candy-Bright in South Korea

The Lollipop House by Moon Hoon is a South Korea residence with seven day-lit levels in a compact footprint, built of wood and metal with a candy-like shell.
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SCADpads: Parking Garage Turned Tiny House Village

22 Jul

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

SCADpads tiny house village 1

Just how livable can a 135-square-foot micro-house really be? That’s what an interdisciplinary group of students, faculty and alumni at Savannah College of Art and Design set out to learn with ‘SCADpad,’ an experiment that has turned a parking garage into a village of tiny houses.

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The larger question that the team wanted to answer was, how can design change the world? SCADpad is an example of transforming an uninhabitable space into sustainable and efficient housing using the millions of parking spaces in the United States that are typically vacant at any given time.

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Each of the three SCADpad units has its own theme and visual identity reflecting the college’s global footprint, with a common green space fostering a sense of community. It took 10 months to design and develop the project, from its architectural footprint down to the remote home controls.

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Artists from SCAD helped design and decorate the interiors, including large-scale paintings, making these tiny houses visually dazzling, but it’s clear that they’re pretty practical, as well.

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SCADpads tiny house village 10

Students, faculty and special guests lived in the SCADpads from April through June of 2014, documenting the experience on Instagram.

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Baroque Parking Garage Challenges Blind Civic Historicism

Challenged with designing something to fit a historic city-center context in “baroque, classic, neo-classical, romantic and neo-romantic style” is …
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Can a Parking Garage be Sexy? Miami’s 1111 Lincoln Road

1111 Lincoln Road isn’t just a parking garage. It’s a destination in itself, serving as a desirable events space for weddings, photo shoots, concerts and more.
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Crowded House: 5 Silly Small Homes & Cheap Tiny Houses

As the population expands and more of us look for affordable and available housing, architects and designers are making the move toward cheaper, greener, …
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Abandoned Alien Homestead: Forsaken UFO House in Florida

14 Jul

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

UFOhouse_mainx

Painted pink and encrusted with graffiti, the abandoned UFO house in Homestead, Florida, has a backstory as mysterious as its otherworldly architecture.

Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My!

abandoned Florida UFO house

abandoned Florida UFO house

Located in Homestead, Florida, the so-called “UFO House” (or “Alien House”) was built around 1974 when the town’s population was roughly 15,000. Forty years later, Homestead is home to just over 60,000 yet the UFO House, situated at 37350 Southwest 214th Avenue, is still remarkably isolated… as if the original owner wasn’t interested in having neighbors, EVAR. Credit Abandoned Florida for many of these crisp, clear & creepy images.

abandoned Florida UFO house

abandoned Homestead Florida UFO house

abandoned Homestead Florida UFO house

abandoned Homestead Florida UFO house

Lessee now, why would someone of obvious financial means in ’70s south Florida take steps to ensure exclusivity above and beyond the call? One doesn’t have to consult Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs to arrive at a plausible explanation and a decades-long rumor mill has helped fill in the gaps. The prevailing theory goes something like this: the original builder-owner was allegedly involved in drug trafficking using the front of being an exotic animal importer. The contraband was supposedly hidden in compartments built into the floors of the animal cages. Say hello to my leetle friend, Tony Montana the Tiger!

abandoned Homestead Florida UFO house

abandoned Homestead Florida UFO house

“My friend lived down a dirt road from this place,” relates someone who visited the UFO House around 1979. “It was out in the middle of agriculture fields off of Palm Drive as I remember. We used to ride her dirt bike down there to look at these exotic animals that were caged in back of the house, mostly big cats like tigers and jaguars. We had heard the rumors about it being a drug smuggler using the animals as a cover and one day when we went around the outside of the property a man came out of the house, jumped into a car (old Monte Carlo?) and chased us through the fields. We were terrified and he wouldn’t let up until he caught up with us (we were just 2 twelve year old girls tearing along these dirt roads on a tiny dirt bike). He finally caught us and told us not to ever go back there.” Thanks to Flickr user KACP (Kris Alan Carter Photography) for the above images.

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Abandoned Alien Homestead Forsaken Ufo House In Florida

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Surf ‘n Siege: Huge Abandoned Island Fortress in Florida

A fortress on an isolated island off the coast of Florida was abandoned for nearly a century before becoming part of a national park.
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Nail House: Holdout Building Had Highway Built Around It

China is full of strange stories of so-called ‘nail houses’ – homes of people who refuse to move to make way for a large development project.
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Haunted House? The Abandoned Mansion of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is known as the visionary head of Apple, but there were other facets to his life as well. This is the tale of his magnificent abandoned mansion.
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CityHome: Control This Smart House with a Wave of Your Hand

19 Jun

[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

CityHome Smart House 1

Two hundred square feet may sound absurdly small, even by New York standards, but what if you could make it feel three times larger with hidden furniture and other amenities that roll out and unfold at a wave of your hand? A team at MIT’s architectural program has come up with a smart solution for micro apartments that makes it quick and easy to reconfigure the entire space with virtually zero effort.

CityHome Smart House 2

CityHome Smart House 3

CityHome consists of a transformable wall system that condenses all the main functions of a bedroom, living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom into a tiny space without sacrificing most of what you’d have in a larger apartment. You can still cook for and seat a group of six for dinner, sleep in a comfortable full-sized bed and enjoy a movie in a spacious living room.

CItyHome Smart House 4

You tell the room what you need through a combination of hand gestures, voice control and touch elements, with internal motors silently launching the furniture you require at your command. One gesture draws the bed out of the wall, while another calls forth a work desk that doubles as a dining table.

CityHome Smart House 6

Wave your hand to adjust the ambiance of the room via lighting and window blinds, and move the entire unit against a wall or into the middle of the room at the touch of a button depending on whether you want to divide up the space or gain use of the entire room.

CItyHome Smart House 7

For now, CityHome is just a concept, but MIT envisions turning it into an actual product, possibly through crowdfunding.

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Trapdoor Secrets: Furniture Hidden Inside Floors & Ceilings

This remarkable remodel is full of fun and functional surprises ranging from ceiling-suspended swing sets, hammocks, bookshelves, tables and benches to …
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Disappearing Bed for Tiny Flat Rolls Under Kitchen Floor

When you’re trying to pack an entire apartment worth of furniture into just 130 square feet, where do you find the room for a full-sized bed? The answer, …
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8 Awesome Modern Dining Room Furniture Designs & Ideas

Dedicated dining rooms have only been part of a common floor plan feature since the mid-19th century. Dining rooms have too long been ignored when it comes to …
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