Tag Archives: residence

This floating treehouse perched on steel stilts was inspired by the family’s young daughter’s sketch!

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Designed by a couple’s daughter, the Tree House was built by Ryan Street Architecture Studio to provide a fun and rugged, forested escape from the family’s main residence.

The imagination of children never ceases to inspire. Brimming with daydreams, children are constantly drawing up sketches and coming up with zany ideas. Inspired by the drawings of their own daughter, an Austin-based couple turned to Ryan Street Architecture Studio for help building a treehouse in their backyard. Primarily designed to be a backyard play space for their two daughters, the couple decided to turn the treehouse into something much larger.

Perched atop a system of stilts that mimic clusters of tree branches, the Tree House almost appears like it’s floating above the clearing below. Transforming the floor plans from a children’s treehouse into a much more refined, spacious, and functional guesthouse manifested through the Tree House’s dizzying exterior details.

Paneled with incongruent, uneven wooden slats, the Douglas fir timber chosen for the Tree House’s exterior facades closely resembles the wooden panels that line the couple’s main residence, stationed only a couple meters in front of the Tree House. Having worked on the couple’s main residence, Ryan Street’s choice for the Tree House to mimic the main residence seemed natural.

As project manager Jeremy Ristau notes, “We wanted the Tree House to feel special, while also keeping it relatable in color palette and materials to their main residence since they are in close proximity and it will ultimately feel like one cohesive estate.”

While the sketch became the Tree House’s main and primary source for inspiration, Ryan Street Architecture Studio promptly turned its gaze to the Tree House’s surroundings to better embody the sketches. Punctuated with mirror panels throughout, the Tree House literally reflects its surroundings.

Giving the illusion that trees and brush are closer than they may appear, the mirrors root the Tree House firmly in its natural surroundings. Even the underbelly of the Tree House is anchored with a large mirror to really send home the Tree House’s floating look.

Taking only around five days to reach its final form, Ryan Street asked the Escobedo Group, a local construction company, to develop a panelized prefabricated system called Dario. Constructed offsite, the panels were transported from the Escobedo Group’s factory to the Tree House, avoiding excess waste and streamlining the home’s assembly process.

Equipped with plumbing and electricity rooted in the home’s steel stilt supports, while the exterior might appear ruggedly refined, the interior is as comfortable as any hotel. With a single bedroom located on the home’s first floor and a loft bedroom with two beds, the Tree House functions as a getaway for the family of four and a whimsical house for guests.

Designers: Ryan Street Architecture Studio & Escobedo Group

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This prefabricated steel residence is built from a single Quonset hut to find community through modularity

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The Caterpillar is a 192-foot-long, 46-foot-wide modular residence designed and built from a Quonset hut that features a compact and inhabitable cube in the center of each unit for services such as a bathroom, shower, and kitchen.

In the United States, Quonset huts were introduced in the years following World War I. Based on the earlier Nissen hut, another type of prefabricated steel structure designed by the United Kingdom for military use, Quonset huts were designated for primary use by the U.S. Navy. Chosen for its lightweight profile, the Quonset Hut is an all-purpose building that can be shipped anywhere and assembled without skilled labor.

Today, in Detroit’s Core City neighborhood, real estate development company Prince Concepts, teamed with architect Ishtiaq Rafiuddin and landscape architect Julie Bargmann to turn the Quonset hut into a 9,000sf sculpture with six residences and two live-and-work spaces.

Following True North, the neighborhood’s first live-and-work communal space, the team of architects and developers hoped to merge that same sense of community into a single Quonset hut. Dividing the lengthy residential complex into eight units, each live-and-work space features 23-foot tall ceilings that are lined with clerestory windows and a ‘Jetsons’ style genesis chamber where residents can “transform from ‘just barely awake’ to ‘ready for action,’” as the architects describe.

Constructed from unstained, polished wood, the genesis chamber is positioned neatly in the center of each unit and brings a railroad-style flow to each unit. Separating the bedroom from the kitchen and dining area, the genesis chamber contains all the services available to each unit, including the bathroom, shower, and kitchen. From the kitchen, residents pass through the bathroom to get to the main bedroom and vice versa.

Finding inspiration everywhere from music notes on a piece of sheet music to a UFO crash landing in the forest, the team of architects behind Caterpillar set out to create a type of communal sanctuary in Core City’s urban woodland, where over 150 trees call home.

Caterpillar homes in on porch culture to outfit its exterior with the same sense of openness that floods the inside of each residential unit. From windows to doors, Caterpillar features 36 different openings that bring in pools of natural light indoors during the day and emanate a golden glow from the outside come dark.

Designers: Undecorated, Studio Detroit, Prince Concepts, D.I.R.T. Studio, and SteelMaster

The inhabitable center cube outfits the home with services such as a bathroom, shower, and kitchen. 

The curved walls evoke a similar open layout seen in spiritual dome buildings. 

Designed in railroad style, the genesis chamber divides the home into two different living areas. 

The bathroom takes on a minimalist personality to blend with the unit’s open layout.

Skylights and clerestory windows bring in pools of natural light throughout each unit. 

Each unit is split into its own half-circle splice with 36 different openings lining the facades of Caterpillar. 

The post This prefabricated steel residence is built from a single Quonset hut to find community through modularity first appeared on Yanko Design.

This cabin in the mountain foothills is inspired by the flight patterns and nesting habits of skylarks!

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Skylark Cabin, a 50sqm residence located in the foothills of New Zealand’s Ben Ohau mountain range was inspired by the flight and song of skylarks.

We have birds to thank for our best designs. Their songs and nests have tugged our heartstrings for centuries. Often, birds’ natural instinct leads to the most formidable and elaborate nests. In Twizel, New Zealand, skylarks have a particular pull over the town’s residents. Just below Twizel’s Ben Ohau mountain range, skylarks soar and hover above their on-ground nests in the open skies with song and carefully orchestrated flights. In an ode to the skylark’s “distinctive aerial display” New Zealand architect Barry Connor designed the Skylark Cabin.

Following their client’s brief for a simple retreat made from honest materials, it’s no surprise that the skylark’s singing and nesting habits inspired Connor. As birds construct their nests using local materials from as near or far as their wings will take them, Connor used the surrounding landscape to decide Skylark Cabin’s makeup and design.

Similar to the skylark’s grassy, on-ground nest, Skylark Cabin, cloaked in rough sawn larch timber rain-screen, pokes a gently pitched, yet angular roof just above the sloping grasslands. Acclimating to the prairie’s harsh, windy conditions and radical temperature shifts, Skylark Cabin’s rain-screen cladding was chosen for its year-round durability.

Amidst the dark stained exterior, bright burnt orange window frames and beams lead the gaze towards the home’s front facade where they’re, “poised to accommodate the purposefully framed views of the mountains and the stars that throughout the day or night provide interest, perspective, and scale,” as Connor puts it.

Inside, the different windows are also aptly positioned to provide the best views of the skylarks’ skies. Connor built in a skylight just above the main bedroom, bringing views of the protected Mackenzie Aoraki Dark Sky Reserve as well as skylark-ridden daytime skies before the night show.

The skylark’s grassy, on-ground nest is characteristic of Twizel’s prairie lands for its lack of trees. Evoking the feeling of being completely nestled and immersed in Twizel’s grasslands, Connor paneled Skylark Cabin’s interior in light Beech plywood, “[reflecting] the warm cream tones of the exterior and [blurring] the threshold with the tussock grassland [to capture] the feeling of being nestled right in the landscape.” Connor reinforces this primitive inspiration with a sense of protection through black-edged plywood ribbing details that serve to cradle the home’s wild beginnings and beech-soaked interior.

Designer: Barry Connor

This cliffside villa built in harmony with nature brings out the coastal mountain’s environmental beauty!

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Villa La Grintosa is an elemental residence located in the coastal city of Porto Servo, Sardinia atop a rocky massif that helped to define the home’s floor plan and harmonious layout.

Homes built in harmony with their surrounding landscapes tend to produce havens of elemental architecture. Whether the home’s layout weaves through clusters of pine trees or the rocky edge of a coastal mountainside, the challenge of letting nature decide a home’s structure is always worthwhile.

In Sardinia’s Porto Cervo, Stera Architectures, an architecture agency based in Paris, designed Villa La Grintosa, an all-season residence built to harmonize with the rocky massif it stands on.

The seaside community of Porto Cervo is no stranger to cliffside homes. With dozens of homes puncturing both sides of the mountains that give rise to the port city, Stera Architectures was in the right place when planning Villa La Grintosa.

The team of designers behind La Grintosa went into the project knowing that altering the preexisting landscape wasn’t an option. Taking it one step further, in building La Grintosa, Stera Architectures hopes to enliven the rocky massif where the home is situated.

Noting the harmony of the planning and design process, the team at Stera Architectures describes La Grintosa as an “architectural walk in harmony and continuity with nature where different universes meet and intersect.” Arranged around a central courtyard, La Grintosa’s orientation splits into two different axes–one that faces the sea and one that faces the mountain’s massif.

Arranged on two platforms, the points where these two axes meet become intersections of the home’s main living spaces. Paying credence to the home’s “architectural walk,” Stera Architectures incorporated exterior walking ramps that form a true endless loop through the home, connecting the living room on the eastern facade with the home’s lowest point.

Open-air rooms, Azulejo ceramic work, as well as the home’s uniform exterior cladding made from granite and crushed lava stone paste all work together to send home the infinite loop that Stera Architectures set out to etch into La Grintosa’s elemental layout.

Designer: Stera Architectures

The Azulejo tilework accents bring out the blue hues of the sky and coastal views. 

Open-air rooms flow between outside and interior spaces throughout the home’s floor plan. 

Curved archways meet straight-edge functional elements for a dynamic and harmonious touch. 

Outside, the taupe and gray color schemes merge with the natural rocks that surround the home.

The home’s ever-changing facade mimics the unpredictable terrain of rocky massifs. 

Outside, gray elements drape the home in an elusive guise, while the home’s white stone walls brighten the interior. 

This whimsical home designed by Arthur Dyson is an organic structure built to celebrate nature!

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Located in Sanger, California, The Creek House is a home residence built by Arthur Dyson who used the philosophy of organic architecture to guide the home’s design and construction.

Walking through California will introduce you to some whimsical architecture. Perhaps the most visually mythical and storybook-like, organic architecture is a philosophy of architecture that harmonizes human habitation with the natural world.

Widely considered an adamant proponent of organic architecture, award-winning architect Arthur Dyson designed and constructed The Creek House, one of his organic residential staples. Located on Collins Creek, a tributary of the Kings River in Sanger, California, The Creek House is a home residence built in the philosophy of organic architecture that seamlessly merges into its forested surroundings.

Settled on six acres of land, The Creek House nestles into forested thickets near the base of the Sierras and Sequoia National Park, an ideal location for an organic architectural residence. The Creek House was designed in celebration of nature and its visual connection to the natural world is abundantly apparent.

Looking at the house head-on, its rustic, undulating facade formed out of what appears to be wooden shingles follows the irregular, sinuous curve found in tree rings. Even the topmost wooden panel that keeps a yellowish hue embodies the outermost perimeter of a felled tree trunk.

From the side of the house, its facades resemble the shape of a halved tree trunk, with wooden shingles continuing from the front facade to the home’s roof. The rear deck maintains the home’s completely wooden profile, dissolving an outdoor leisure area into the surrounding brushwood, ​​honeysuckles, cottonwoods, and sycamores.

While the outside of The Creek House finds natural warmth with an entirely wooden frame, the interior burgeons with natural sunlight that pours in through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Mixing natural wooden art deco accents with ’90s interior design elements, The Creek House is the kind of cozy you have to experience for yourself.

Designer: Arthur Dyson

Elements of interior design from the 1990s fill out the inside of The Creek House.

An indoor vista terrace opens up the divide between an upstairs bedroom and the downstairs living room.

Amidst white walls and glass windows, wooden art deco accents give the home some personality. 

Geometric angles and lines bring some harmony to each room of The Creek House.

This Japanese-inspired residence features a multi-tiered, sloping roof that mimics the gentle curve of fallen leaves!

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Four Leaves Villa designed by Kentaro Ishida Architects Studio (KIAS) is a form of organic architecture with a gently twisted, multi-tiered roof that mimics the sloping curve of fallen leaves and a central garden courtyard, the home’s concealed centerpiece.

150 kilometers from the buzzing city streets of Tokyo, Japan, a forested plot of land in Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture of Japan, is home to a weekend retreat designed to mirror the fallen leaves that surround it. Dubbed Four Leaves Villa, the privately-owned residence is a form of organic architecture with a split-level roof designed by Kentaro Ishida Architects Studio (KIAS) that mimics the undulating, overlapping pattern of fallen leaves.

Organic architecture is a philosophy of architecture with a primary goal of harmonizing human habitation with nature. Following the philosophy of organic architecture, the varying orientations of Four Leaves Villa’s living and dining spaces were specifically chosen with consideration to the use of each space and the amount of natural sunlight that might benefit each room’s function.

The living and dining areas face southeast to collect pools of natural sunlight, brightening each room during the day for meals and social gatherings. Then, the bedrooms are posed west to catch views of the forest’s dense brushwood that provides a sense of privacy during the day and coziness at night.

The gently twisted roofs also provide plenty of overhangs to brace guests against the blaze of sun rays. The constructional combination of a concave and convex roof makes for a dynamic interior volume. Where the roof inclines outside, the interior ceiling, lined with exposed wooden beams, reaches lofty heights.

Describing the roof in their own words, KIAS notes, “Every roof has been designed as a Ruled Surface in which straight Laminated Veneer Lumber joists are arranged continuously to form an organic geometry. A series of wooden joists are exposed on the ceiling highlighting the dynamic spatial characters of each living space.”

The interior living, dining, and sleeping spaces are split between three interconnected structural volumes placed on site amongst a preexisting lot of trees. From above, the open-air garden courtyard functions as the home’s centerpiece and the point where the three structural volumes meet, offering an outdoor leisure area where the home’s guests can come together and spend time in nature.

Designer: Kentaro Ishida Architects Studio (KIAS)

Four Leaves Villa’s floor plan reveals the three structural volumes without their roofs and the garden courtyard that functions as their centerpiece. 

This Mars-inspired multipurpose building defies conventional architecture to ignite our imagination!

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Seoul-based architecture studio Moon Hoon is known for designing whimsical and geometric buildings that take on unexpected angled roofs and contrasting color schemes. When a client asked him to create a residence that defied all traditional architecture conventions, Moon Hoon turned to outer space for inspiration. Mars is a multipurpose structure located in Hwaseong, South Korea that comprises three geometric blocks stacked on top of one another, almost appearing like a honeycomb gone wonky.

Mars is situated in the new urban development of Hwaseong, where its surrounding environment is still relatively vacant and flat, evoking a similar landscape to that of the Big Red Planet. The three slabs were initially conceptualized as a long mobile home, but the plans ultimately matured to form three independent floors stacked together like a conjoined 3D puzzle. Mars wears a brass frame that borders modernist glass panels and Mondrian-esque steel beams.

Inside Mars, Moon Hoon aimed to provide an illusory spatial experience where the floors were folded and the roofs formed angles to test the resident’s sense of gravity. Stacked together, each of the three floor provides different functions, creating “a small and symbolic universe where spaceships and planets mingle haphazardly, evoking some kind of strange universe,” as Moon Hoon describes it.

The first floor, a rectangular and open-air space, is devoted to commercial use for anyone to rent out and design as they like. Right above the first geometric block, two apartment spaces fill out the second floor, one offering three bedrooms while the other comes as a one-bedroom living space. The top floor, occupied by the clients behind Mars’s conception, is the structure’s loft. There, its residents can enjoy total flexibility in a two-bedroom penthouse with an observatory-like sphere that juts out from one of Mars’s side facades, resembling a purposely misplaced, miniature Pantheon roof or Boulle’s Sphere, further enlightening the structure’s ode to planetary design. 

Designer: Moon Hoon

When looked at head-on, Mars resembles a honeycomb gone purposefully awry.

The side facade features a Pantheon-like sphere that houses the loft’s living room.

Inside, Moon Hoon designed Mars to mimic a “strange universe” fit for spaceships and planets alike.

The underside of the structure’s folded and angled floors form the roofs of the floors beneath, creating an illusory spatial experience.

Sliding wooden doors open each floor up to flexibility and open-air living spaces.

The top floor is occupied by the clients behind the structure’s conception, where two bedrooms and various living spaces converge.

The Pantheon-like sphere resembles an observatory and enhances the structure’s tribute to planetary design.