In City Bell, a town in the suburbs of La Plata (Argentina), the need for expansion on a single-family home gave origin to this idea. As an answer to this issue, the existing conditions and the new requirements (a new bedroom), the decision was to continue the development of the “private” part of the house taking as a starting point the repetition and traslation of a structural element and the morphology of the preexistence.
Culto is a coffee shop located in the Old City, on the Sarandí pedestrian street, emblematic street of the historic center of the city of Montevideo. The place where it is located dates from the beginning of the 20th century, a historical moment of apogee and abundance in the “Switzerland of America”.
The project its about the rehabilitation of 141 doors: the opportunity to recycle 141 wooden doors which where recycle by the owner from an old warehouse. As result of this, the opportunity arises to generate an inner skin, which is capable of drawing spaces of different dimensions, expandable and reducible, as the leaves opens or closes from the heart of the house, putting light in and appropiating the patio in very different ways depending of the users desire. The house (the patio and its extensions), is a toy to be modified at any time and it adapts to the needs of privacy or continuity of its inhabitants, or to the needs of light, depending on the external climate, or the internal mood of the inhabitants. A continuous skin that allows the house to be constituted of multiple small spaces of the same nature, thanks to the continuity of this internal nature that the doors build (and their large and small openings that allow the passage of people and light), or to transform into a one single space that gives the occasion to party with friends, dinner for guests or evenings between the patio and terraces.
‘The Shambles’ – transformation of a 1960s bungalow to a four-bedroom family house. When the owners moved into The Shambles with their two young children, it was unsuitable for their needs. While the footprint was generous, the bungalow felt cramped and dated for a family of four. The toilet was located separately to the shower, which was an attachment over the bathtub, while the living room had no fixed lighting at all. The garden was only accessible via a steep concrete staircase. The project to turn the bungalow into a family house, led by Sketch Architects, has transformed the way the family enjoys their home. They now have created a large, high-ceilinged living space that directly addresses the garden and offers views across the nearby Bourne Woods. A separate playroom and formal living room ensure everyone has their own space. The girls share a generous bedroom, while their parents have an en-suite and dressing room attached to their large master bedroom.
Reinterpreting the typology of a Mexican house in a contemporary version, was the premise to design Keita House, where the central patio became the circulation and main view of the residence. This last one, serves as the project’s heart, it can be contemplated from everywhere, and it is completely surrounded by both private and social areas of the proposal. Existing vegetation and the climate in Colima city, allowed the continuous opening of the proposed volumes. In the design, all the spaces are somehow permeated by either vegetation, wind and natural light, components that at the same time conquer until erasing the barrier between nature and architecture.
The House at Taubenmarkt is situated in the heart of the provincial capital of Upper Austria, where infrastructure in every form and to every time is achievable in a few minutes. In contrast to the old town urbanity and vitality, there was the wish for quietness and intimacy within the building. The entrance area of the penthouse, which is split on three floors, can be reached above an inventory spiral staircase on fifth floor. As well as the already existing patio a new one, which is situated in the middle of this floor, brings in a lot of light and a calm atmosphere into the foyer. The bathroom is oriented to this tiny green courtyard too.
The modern new building, planned by Bundschuh Architekten, had not only the potential of becoming an important urban building block, but also to be in the best company of galleries, cafés, bars, and an art association, thus completing an exciting cultural quarter. Of course, the main protagonist of the interior was clear to the design team at Kinzo: the book. Or rather the books. Or even more aptly: the thousands and thousands of books! Our vision was a house, which rests on multi-story high stacked volumes instead of walls and columns. As emotional and atmospheric building blocks, the books should form the supporting structure and at the same time be the daily working instrument. Accordingly, shelves had to be built, many shelves – these had to fill almost every free space on the walls while simultaneously replacing them. But how could Suhrkamp’s enormous book collection find enough space on the limited wall space? A new concept for the entire building plan pro-vided the answer: Kinzo divided the floor plan and let the walls meander through the 6 floors of the building in the form of a zigzag, like an inner facade. This idea not only created more wall space and thus sufficient shelf space but at the same time optimized the area of the rooms and created small niches – usable for all employees as retreat rooms for spontaneous meetings, communication islands, think tanks or telephone booths.
Initially being one of a three unit ensemble, the river studio is a 1 bedroom minimal home, a response to a few constraints and opportunities surrounding the lot shape. Being of extremely narrow nature, the lot required to contain the access road to the main house – as a consequence of that we occupied the space on top of the driveway by cantilevering the small studio bedroom component over it, and created an upstairs.
Located in the Templeton Gap area of West Paso Robles, California this simple agricultural storage structure rests at the toes of the 50 acre James Berry Vineyard and the adjacent Saxum Winery sitting just over 800 feet away. Designed as a modern pole barn, the reclaimed oil field drill stem pipe structure’s primary objectives are to provide an armature for a photovoltaic roof system that offsets more than 100% of power demands on the winery and to provide covered open-air storage for farming vehicles and their implements, workshop and maintenance space, and storage for livestock supplies.
Successful sustainable design requires analyzing and planning for local economic and demographic trends. In recent years, both Lawrence, Kansas and Studio 804 have recognized that while the county’s population is growing at a high rate the average household size is dwindling. Comprehensive Lawrence planning documents have anticipated these problems by projecting population growth. According to the city, we have seen medium to high population growth rates over the last two decades, and if this trend continues, we will need housing to accommodate a projected 30 to 60 thousand additional residents by the year 2040. These large population increases become even more significant when you factor in the average household size. As Lawrence wants to avoid outward sprawl, groups such as the nonprofit Community Housing Trust have put forward creative solutions for this county-wide issue. They suggest creating “affordable housing by dividing lots in existing neighborhoods to accommodate two smaller homes.” Increasing urban density in established neighborhoods provides a sustainable way to accommodate a growing population by utilizing existing resources and infrastructure. We have taken the lead in this effort by purchasing one lot and creating a subdivision for the two sustainable houses.
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