My Cabin Design - Hand drawn

Good architecture interwaeves Firmness, Commodity and Delight. A house is an environmental filter, a container for human activities and a delightful experience.

After analysing Bud Brannigans design for the 5th avenue residence it was easy for me to see what qualities about this house I liked and what qualities I wanted to incorporate in to my own design for the cabin. I have been looking for firmness, commodity and delight as architecture should be based on these elements. In some cases these three elements tend to overlap each other.

A house protects you from the surrounding environment. One of the qualities I liked about the 5th avenue house was the vegetation surrounding the building. I designed my cabin so that the vegetation together with the open plan of the house make you feel closer to the nature. The vegetation also lets you get a strong feeling of privacy, as the neighbours can’t look in to the site. Another strong element I tried to incorporate in my design was to let as much natural light as possible in to all the rooms of the building. I divided my cabin in to two separate parts and designed the roofs on different levels to allow the natural light fill the rooms in the cabin.

A house is a container for human activities. The public and private areas within both the house and the cabin are separate. The big deck connects the spaces and works as a circulation area. The outside space between the two buildings is covered by the roofs so you can access the public or private area protected. The kitchen can be used either indoor or outdoor preferably after the weather conditions. The adjacencies between the rooms are also carefully considered, the space for cooking and abluting are strategically placed easily accessible from most of the rooms in the cabin.

A house is a delightful experience. The structure of the cabin, as the residence, is designed on sloped land to take advantage of the wind. The breeze filters through the building from underneath and by opening the doors out to the deck the breeze can also filter through horizontally. This is necessary because of the natural light and potential thermal radiation. Because of the fresh air from the surrounding vegetation this certainly must be a great sensory experience. The 5th avenue residence was built with the recycable material plywood, and I chose to design my cabin with the same material as it is good for the environment and has an aesthetic look. Another desirable element about the 5th avenue residence is the form, and this is where I got my main design concept from. The Parti of the design is; the core of the cabin (being the deck) segregates the public and private spaces.

(Please click on the images to enlarge)

Diagrams for my cabin design

Hand Drawn - Fifth Avenue Residence

Fifth Avenue Residence, Bud Brannigan - Brisbane/Australia

(Picture: http://oak.arch.utas.edu.au/projects/aus/456/456_3.htm)

::: The Fifth Avenue Residence strongly response to the site environmentally and traditionally, and the use of material and construction techniques are carefully thought through. The Fifth Avenue Residence thereby received, in 1993, the Robin Boyd Award for residential architecture from the Australia Institute of Architects (Queensland art gallery, 2008).

What I like the most about the Brannigan residence is the deck. The deck is the biggest space in the house and connects the rooms; it also works as a circulation area. The house is simple, but has smart solutions, in my opinion, and thats why I chose this house. It is all about extinguishing the lines between the indoor and outdoor spaces so it feels like one, big, open space (Timber Research Unit, n.d.). I like how you can sit inside this house, but feel like you are sitting outside, this is one of the things about the Brennigan residence that makes a visit to the house a delightful experience.

The house is designed for its climate so shading and natural ventilation plays a big role in the building (Timber Research Unit, n.d.). Bud Brannigan has also made sure that every room, even a room in the middle of the house, has natural light coming in. A room with natural light is much more enjoyable and delightfull than a room only light up by artificial light.

The house is surrounded by trees. Since the interior of the house is so open to its environment the trees act like a wall. The “wall of trees” protects the house and work like an environmental filter. The air inside the building gets cleansed, the occupants get more privacy, and it makes outside noises harder to hear. :::


Reference List:

Queensland art gallery. (2008). Bud Brannigan Architects. Retrieved March 16, 2010, from http://qag.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/past/2008/place_makers/architects/bud_brannigan_architects

Timber Research Unit. (n.d.) Brannigan house. Retrieved March 9, 2010, from http://www.timberbuilding.arch.utas.edu.au/projects/aus/456/456_3.htm

Peninsula House - Sean Godsell

(Picture: http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/residential/archives/images/0304godsell-1.jpg)

At the first glance this house looks like its made out of bamboo, however, the whole house, both the walls and the roof, is wrapped with the slim recyclable timber “Jarrah timber”. This aesthetic look is appealing to the eye and, at the same time, suits its dusty environment by the beach (Helsel and Sand 2003).

The shutters made out of Jarrah timber can be opened up to let the wind filter through the house on hot summer days. When the shutters are up it also extinguishes the lines between the outdoor and indoor spaces. When they are shut they protect the house from sand and winter storms. Also the light filter through and this makes the atmosphere in the house quite special.

Even the interior of the house is inspired from the surrounding nature. Naturally shaped rocks are laying on the bathroom floor, and again you get the feeling of being outside.

Not just the inside and outside spaces have a smooth transition, but also the spaces within the house. The walls are easy to change and you can turn one room into a bigger space if you want to, or make a private area in to a public area.

References:

Helsel and Sand. 2003. Sean Godsell transforms a seemingly simplex box, wrapping his PENINSULA HOUSE in a veil of slender wood battens. Architectural Record; 191 (4): 134-140.

Pieris, A., G. London, J. Clark, A. Achmadi, P. Anurakyawachon and P. Goad. (2004). Houses for the 21st century. Sydney: Periplus.

Casa Tóló, Alvaro Leite Siza Vieira - Portugal

(Picture: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008408.html)

::: The architect behind Casa Tóló, Alvaro Leite Siza Vieira, has created a different kind of home for his cousin in Portugal. Even though the site is just a steep slope and the budget was tight Vieira manages to design a house that turns out to be an award-winning piece of architecture. There is a primarily connection between culture, climate and landscape in Casa Tóló that makes this house so appropriate in its place (The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2006).


(Picture: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008408.html)
I like that even though the house is made out of concrete it doesn’t put it self too much out in its environment, but follows the contours of the landscape. From above all you can see is the roof of the first room, this is where you park your car and also where you enter the building (Pearson, C.A., 2006). As you walk down staircase after staircase you discover more rooms to explore.


(Picture: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008408.html)
The architect has made a “game” of this house, playing with the light inside the building and the stairs that lead you from one room to another. No room in this house is on the same level, and the stairs between the rooms acts like corridors (Pearson, C.A., 2006). In a way, it seems like to me, that each room in the house is almost like a little house itself, because of this each room has a unique sense of privacy. Vieira has also made sure that the indoor and outdoor spaces connects. It must certainly be a delightful experience to enjoy the veranda on the roof of the room below.

It’s interesting to see how such a hard task can be solved in such a simple way; concrete “boxes” placed down the slope connected by stairs, where each “box” is a container for different human activities. :::


Reference List:

Pearson, C.A. (2006) In northern Portugal, Alvaro Leite Siza Vieira cascades CASA TOLO down a steep slope through terraced gardens. Retrieved February 2, 2010, from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=5&sid=726c398e-16c8-4d5d-9ba5-f6384ecc867e%40sessionmgr4&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=afh&AN=20648476

The McGraw-Hill Companies. (2006). Record Houses 2006. Retrieved March 16, 2010, from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=8&sid=2a920c82-4547-4c91-82cf-ba029a3854cc%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=afh&AN=20648469