Tag Archives: Houseboats

Red glass house on top of catamaran gives you an amazing aquatic view

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If I had the money and the means to have a semi-permanent home on the seas, I probably would want to have a yacht where I can bring my loved ones too whenever they would want to just get away from the concrete jungle and chill. Alas, that will probably remain a dream but that doesn’t mean I cannot daydream through these concepts and designs that show what life on water can look like.

Designer: Jacopo Leoni

The Cube Houseboat is a concept for a floating luxury house that is inspired by the Modernist movement and Swiss-French designer Le Corbusier. The red glass house is made from a fusion of alloy and reinforced glass built on top of an aluminum catamaran. The main star is something called the Fly Deck which is a single, superstructure deck that can be accessed through external stairs. You’ll be able to get a good view of the surrounding waters as well as a custom pool. Inside the main bedroom, there is also a Commercial Jacuzzi in case you need somewhere to relax even more.

The Semi Hulls that is located just below the main deck is where you’ll be able to see the machinery spaces, tanks, and chain lockers. In other words, you’ll get all the functional stuff in that section of the boat. And in case you have your other “sea toys” on board, they’ll be housed in the stern area for easy access in case you need to play. The Bow Area is for mooring and the entire boathouse has two propellers for propulsion and they’re powered by a diesel engine.

While it’s considered to be a red glass house, it can also be changed to a different color if red is not your vibe. The glass house on top of a catamaran seems a pretty minimalist but luxurious space to stay in when you just want to relax on top of water and enjoy the view surrounded by aquatic life. This is actually the third vessel concept that the Leoni Design Workshop has come up with for the Beyond Horizons: A Voyage through Yacht Design event.

The post Red glass house on top of catamaran gives you an amazing aquatic view first appeared on Yanko Design.

Seattle’s floating home community makes room for a new wooden houseboat

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The Water Cabin is a floating home in Seattle’s Portage Bay that maintains the houseboat’s classic nautical personality and the weathered coziness of a cabin.

Wooden planks replace grassy front lawns and piers take the place of sidewalks in Portage Bay, one of Seattle’s larger remaining houseboat enclaves. Stretching from University Bridge to Montlake Park, the floating community is home to plenty of Seattleites searching for an alternative to the traditional family home.

One resident who previously rented a houseboat on Portage Bay enjoyed it so much they wanted to construct their very own water-bound retreat. Looking no further than Olson Kundig, a Seattle-based architecture firm, to get the job done, the Water Cabin is a new residence on Portage Bay that takes on Kundig’s classic cabin architecture.

Designer: Olson Kundig

Defined by a geometric silhouette that exhibits Kundig’s classic style, the Water Cabin’s frame is supported by galvanized steel structures that cradle spacious roof planes and wooden decks. Building the Water Cabin, Olson Kundig and their client hoped to blend interior and exterior spaces throughout the home. Arranged over two levels, the home’s interior spaces are specifically configured to maximize connections to the marine environment.

An open layout allows room for dining, kitchen, and office spaces to occupy the Water Cabin’s bay-level floor. A sliding wooden partition creates another room in the bay level’s office area and a hidden murphy bed reveals its purpose as the home’s guest room.

Throughout the home’s interior spaces, oakwood lines the floors and casework, while cooler silver and black metals help to cool it down. Russian birch plywood ceilings line each room overhead, capturing the natural sunlight of the day and brightening the home.

Just outside, beyond a glass corner and large sliding doors, residents can enjoy an exterior patio built from rich Ipe wood decking. There, large roof overhangs protect the patio’s wood from seasonal elements, allowing for residents to use the outdoor space on a year-round basis. Up top, the Water Cabin hosts the main bedroom where unfettered views of the water can be enjoyed as a cozy lookout. The same roof overhangs that protect the bay-level deck create a deck for the upper level.

Combining the intrinsic nautical elements of a houseboat with the “weathered informality of a cabin,” the Water Cabin’s exterior cladding is lightly stained in knotty western red cedar. Resembling the wild arrangement of trees in a forest, the Water Cabin’s wooden slats are arranged in an irregular pattern. Holding the wooden slats together, galvanized steel and flame-sprayed zinc elements provide support throughout the frame’s perimeter.

Rich, western red cedar panels line the exterior of Olson Kundig’s Water Cabin. 

Floor-to-ceiling glass windows dissolve the barrier between outdoor and indoor spaces. 

Warm oak flooring merges with the exterior Ipe wood decking.  

The Water cabin’s distinct cubic silhouette stands apart from the rest of the bay’s traditional houseboats.

The post Seattle’s floating home community makes room for a new wooden houseboat first appeared on Yanko Design.

These floating homes in Amsterdam are designed to beat the rising sea levels and escape the growing city population

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Fifteen minutes from Amsterdam, Waterbuurt translated to ‘Water District,’ is a neighborhood that floats, freezes, and tilts on the waters of Lake Eimer. Designed by Dutch architect Marlies Rohmer, Waterbuurt sets the stage as a water-based solution for Holland’s modern housing needs. The Netherlands actually means, ‘the low-lying country,’ indicating the country’s close proximity to water. In fact, much of the country’s land is either below sea level or just slightly above it. In order to go with the flow of the approaching tide and avoid the surging population in urban centers, Waterbuurt adapts to the rising sea levels and finds calm away from the congestion of the city.

Upon completion, 18,000 homes will comprise Waterbuurt, but for now, more than 100 of them float on jetties. The houses, which are permanently fastened to steel pylon-enforced moorings, resemble attractive shipping containers and share more in appearances with land-based housing than the familiar houseboats dotted along Amsterdam’s canals. With similar architecture to that of land-homes, each Waterbuurt floating house has to be connected to the floor of Lake Eimer, which distinguishes Waterbuurt’s homes from Amsterdam’s docked houseboats. Two mooring posts also anchor each home for optimum stability and the material used to construct the homes is chosen with careful consideration for the environment and health of Lake Eimer, so the building material does not leak pollutants into the water. Constructed from wood, the homes rest above a concrete caisson, a large watertight chamber, in order to attain a low center of gravity, further enhancing the home’s stability. The caisson is also habitable, so basement parties are sure to be a hit.

From afar, the homes look like a dizzying display of funhouse mirrors, but upon closer inspection, the homes’ true building materials are revealed: wood, plastic, and glass. Everything about the architecture of the homes centers around the water world, but all the residents have individual access to concrete jetties, bringing them to land. Running below the jetties, cables and pipes generate gas, electricity, water, cable, and provide a sewage drainage system for each floating home. Built at a shipyard, about 40 miles north, the floating houses of Waterbuurt are distinct with light wooden panels that soften, and line the several glass windows, which reflect Lake Eimer’s metallic surface. In designing the homes for residential use, there is a lot of flexibility during the construction stages. Future residents hold the creative power when it comes to deciding on which side they prefer a view or more privacy, which location on the roof they envision their terrace or garden, and even the position of their windows.

The floating homes of Waterbuurt are said to act more like land-based homes and, despite being constructed specifically to stand above water, are designed with the convenience of living on the land in mind. With that, most residents of Waterbuurt really aren’t looking for that magical ‘Aquaworld’ experience when they sign up for a floating Waterbuurt home. Since most of the residents seem to have chosen to live on the water in order to be closer to nature and retreat from the bursting city population, Waterbuurt consists of a network of homes that seem to work together with a collective ideal in mind: to move with the tide of the natural world. In fact, Waterbuurt is such a tight-knit community of water dwellers that when one resident is short on electrical power, another neighbor can offer some of theirs if they’ve got any leftover current.

Designers: Marlies Rohmer