Monday, March 29, 2010

Villa Sechs

Perhaps this is a step back (or sideways). I had something organic in mind, but this design reverted to Villa Einz. Anyway- this is a three story house with two bedrooms on the ground floor and a third-floor loft/bedroom open to the living area below. The house contains 240 square meters of area.

Stay tuned for something softer to follow!

2 comments:

  1. I love the curve roof/wall on this one, especially as seen in the last rendering. I reminds me of a sail. And I really like the view on the second rendering from the top. Depending on what you see outside, it could be really nice. I also like that there's space above the curve where light can come in to keep the place from looking cavernous. Nice!

    I'm curious about a couple of things, mainly because I just bought a house and am now asking myself these questions (which I should have asked before).

    How about privacy? With all those great, wide-open windows on the upper floors, how do you cover those when you want to keep things private? Is the glass such that you could click a button and have them go opaque? Do you picture shades taking care of that? Maybe no privacy on the upper floors?

    With all that glass, is it likely to be difficult to insulate?

    Also, what about storage? Where do you put "stuff," like, say, the vacuum cleaner? The dishwasher or washer/dryer? (I suspect there are interesting things to be seen on the non-curve (or front?) of the house.)

    I guess what I'm leading up to is a request to see some interior designs with clever use of space. Mainly because I'm curious to see how you integrate the overall beauty and design of the house-as-a-whole with the mundane needs of humans day-to-day.

    Anyway, keep posting! Don't feel you have to answer my dorky questions. I just figure if you put in the effort of designing something, I ought to take it seriously and max out my curiosity.

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  2. Thanks for your comments!
    All good questions, actually! There is a large storage area to the left of the entry door on the ground floor, and in other locations - such as the kitchen a built-in pantry has been provided so eliminate clutter. Also, the refrigerator and freezer are built in to an area facing on the kitchen, so that they become "invisable".
    The technology for glass these days has become so advanced that with a high quality, double (or triple if you live in Alaska) glazing system you get minimal heat loss, even with large areas of exposed glass. The curved roof in this house would likely be made of "kalwall" a translucent white, insulating material that's beautiful to look at- reminiscent of soji screens. The chemically built-in opaque system is terrific for privacy but also expensive. In most cases I would use a blind system called "mecho-shade" which rolls into a tight bundel, and disappears in the ceiling, when not in use. These shades have a super-high insulating value and cut out something like 90% of heat gain in summer, while remaining translucent. You've probably seen these used at your local Starbucks!
    Privacy isn't as much of an issue in Europe as in the US, because their culture(s) have a different (healthier) view of the human body than in the US. In Finland for instance, if someone were walking naked down the street, people would just think to themselves - "oh, I didn't know there was a sauna close by" of course, in general, I've tried to screen the houses from the street and open them to the rear yards which are heavily landscaped.
    This 3D program (Revit) is revolutionary in that it allows you to design in 3D while simulaneously generating the floor plans, building sections, etc. I haven't learned how to convert the 2D plans to JPEG's yet, but when I do, I'll forward them to you...

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