THE NOT SO BIG HOUSE PROTOTYPE 454-3 designed by Sarah Susanka architect

This beautiful home was designed by architect, Sarah Susanka, for herself. She built it originally to illustrate the ideas she was writing about in her first book in the Not So Big® series--The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live. It is designed to promote a floor plan that is far more appropriate for present day lifestyles, and it is filled with special details that make the house a delight to live in, while living up to it Not So Big® name. Instead of building formal spaces that rarely if ever get used, this house is designed so that every space will be put to good use everyday. Featuring spacious, light-filled rooms, built-ins, and an open floor plan, it embodies the principles of quality and comfort that are at the root of Not So Big® design. The house is designed for a full walk-out lower level, ideal for a visiting guest to enjoy their own private bed and bath, and with excellent home office space with its own exterior entry. In a tiny attic garret, there also a cozy Place of Your Own (or Poyo, as Sarah calls it), accessed by a ship's ladder from the second floor.

Like Sarah's other house plans, the Not So Big House Prototype illustrates a play on a theme and variation, with the frequent appearance throughout the house of an archetypal form--the circle. On the second floor, directly above the front door, there is a large translucent window in the shape of a partial circle. The curve of this beautiful form runs through the upstairs bathroom and stairway landing, lending significant drama to the second floor--in a Not So Big® way, of course.

Source : houseplans

Natural House Bilthoven Villas designed by Cita Architects

This Natural Bilthoven Villas development of eight natural villas is designed by Cita Architects. The Bilthoven Villas are located in a wooded area in the Dutch village of Bilthoven.

Source : cita

Primitive House design in Saijo Hiroshima designed by Suppose Design Office, Japan

35 year old talented architect Makoto Tanijiri, chief architect of Suppose Design Office. In the nine year existence of Suppose Design Office they have built more than 50 works of architecture, almost all single-family homes, among other projects. The impressive number of works completed topped up in 2007 with the modern pit dwelling in Saijo, Hiroshima. In Saijo, a town known for it sake, a jet black pyramid unexpectedly stands out; when first seen it seems as if it’s a house from the future. On the contrast, it’s actually inspired by the earliest house in Japanese architecture; the pit dwelling or the “tateana jukyo”. Constructed during the Yayoi era (200 B.C. – 250 A.D.), pit dwellings were built by digging a circular pit (or rectangular one with rounded edges) fifty or sixty centimeters deep and five to seven meters in diameter, then covering it with a steep thatched roof. Not very different from talented young architects Makoto Tanijiri’s modern day pit dwelling.

The sunken level of the house is communal; the perimeter is constructed by exposed glossy concrete. The sunken level is open plan and consists of the living, kitchen and dining areas. Although it is a meter below ground level it has a lot of natural light as Tanjiri placed ribbon windows running on all four sides. Four inclined black steel V plates were placed at each corner of the ground floor, to support the construction and the other two levels of the pit dwelling. A timber staircase without handrails leads to the first floor where the master bedroom and bath is found; however, it also neatly conceals a washroom located on the ground floor. The master bedroom enjoys a terrace, which is cut into the surface of the pyramid-like construction thus allowing natural light into the master bedroom. A transitional sentiment of calmness and anticipation reveals the perplexed entry into the cone shaped construction through the connection of a minimal steel staircase, artistic and creative, as is usually the case in Japanese houses, where the disorientation in design that the handrail creates is omitted.

Source : yatzer

House at Punta Chilen designed by Nicolás del Río, Max Núñez Architects

Located on the tip of a peninsula on the island of Chiloe, the site offers an open view of the horizon 360º around it and distant views over the Andes mountains where at least 8 volcanos can be seen (some of them still active). A rhythmic repetition of columns on the first floor carry the structure to the perimeter and generates changing shadows on the interiors. The oblique shape of the corten steel roof on the second floor defines an irregular perimeter opposed to the flat line of the horizon, creating a contained living space to inhabit during the rainy days of Chiloe.

Architects: Nicolás del Río, Max Núñez.
Collaborator: Andres Soffia.
Location: Chiloé Island, X Region, Chile.
Built Surface: 276 sqm.
Building Contractor: Nicolás Aranguiz.
Year: 2009.
Photographs: Tomás Müller / Sergio Pirrone.

Source : drn