Top 10 ish - Modern Residential Design - 1 year old

As Modern residential Design celebrates its belated birthday, I thought I bring you couple of Top 5s whilst preparing for the arrival of my second son.

Top 5 Posts on Modern Residential Design

And here's the traffic / commented / linked list of what you guys thought was coolist!

Arthur Casas - House in Iporanga

A true Tropical Jungle residential retreat. Minimalist, contrasting, yet befitting it's location.

Marcio Kogan - Laranjeiras House

My ideal beachside mansion, open plan, indoors and outdoors blurred, simple palette and spashes of colour.

Marcio Kogan - Mirindiba House

Amazing spans that defy gravity, cavity hidden doors, texture, colour and ahhh.

Melling:Morse Architects Ltd - Split Box

Hometown favourites from my university days, Melling:Morse are the masters of timber in New Zealand.

Arkhefield - Balaam House

Flow, privacy, segmentation of rest and action areas, scaled to fit with its neighbours and what links to exterior spaces.

Jonathan Segal - The Prospect

From the Paladin of affordable Modern Residential Design, I love seeing Jonathan mentoring others to create stylish buildings you can actually live in.

Top 5 Online Architecture Compatriots

Some of the guys that give me drive & motivation to keep hunting out cool modern design.
Many thanks for the links / diggs / stumbles / emails and support guys!!

Materialicio.us

www.materialicio.us

Contemporist

www.contemporist.com

Plataforma Arquitectura

www.plataformaarquitectura.cl

Arch Daily

www.archdaily.com

Arkinetia

www.arkinetia.com

Noticias Arquitectura

www.noticiasarquitectura.info

OK, 6, it was hard to make it so short.

Hope you enjoy - new residences coming soon!

Thanks to all my loyal followers too! New content coming soon I promise!

David Hertz - Studio EA - Floating Residence

David Hertz - Studio EA

Floating Residence

Suspended Tetris - David Hertz has produced a number of fantastic residences and the Floating or Binder Residence in Venice, CA is no exception. It's paired back black minimalist play on volumes and floating separated masses intrigues.

Overview
The project is located on a small, 37 foot wide lot on a pedestrian only street in Venice, CA. Rather than create one solid object, David followed his residential design signature of two, two story units. The upper levels of the units seeming to float above minimal tilt up concrete walls and pillars of the lower levels. The two upper levels being attached by an open-air bridge. The larger of the structures is used as a residence while the other is used as an art studio and guest room over a garage.

The glazed panels, central to the floating effect are also large, sliding doors that conceal themselves so that the ground floor appears to be open to the exterior courtyards, thus blurring the definition of interior and exterior spaces. A large 2-story chimney wall frames the rear of the courtyard while blocking the overlooking 2-story neighbours. The exterior fireplace at the second floor flanks an outdoor sleeping porch and seating area off of the perforated breezeway bridge. Ipe, and black steel are used throughout the house to complement the Syndecrete® prefabricated concrete panels.

Walls on the first floor are intentionally held from touching the ceiling of the second floor to allow for a clear line of site over neighbouring residences and giving the illusion that the second story is floating above the first floor. These clerestory windows also bathe the lower level in light. The mass of the second floor elevations is divided into sections of positive and negative spaces that reinforce the destabilisation of the wall plane. Some of the vertical slices are specific to selective views of nearby palm trees.

A central floating stair divides the spaces and leads to a usable roof deck framed by high solid parapet walls providing privacy and strategically edited views of the distant landscape.

A continuous skylight, that opens to serve as a shaft to facilitate stack effect ventilation, frames the stairs that float from the ceiling of the second story. The exterior walls of the second story are covered in a smooth, steel trowel, integrally pigmented, stucco. These are connected seamlessly to the interior ceiling of the first floor, their continuation internally to form one single mass, further emphasises the weight of the "floating" block above.

Slideshow

Plans

via: Many thanks to Christina at Studio EA

MacGabhann Architects - Tuath na Mara Residence

MacGabhann Architects

Tuath na Mara Residence

Armoured Longboat - Standing vigilant over a northern Fjord in Ireland, the Tuath na Mara Residence, by MacGabhann Architects appears solid as a rock. Zinc clad for resilience, the low slung house blends seamlessly into the heather-covered rocky landscape, its own seams, echoing the strata of surrounding rocks. Contrasting a well hunkered core, the roof line warps and twists upwards like wonderful grey weathered seaweed, revealing the surrounding views to the living areas.

Overview
The project's focus around the specifics of the site and putting the personal and particular experiences above the powerful and the public, seeks to create a mood which is meditative instead of tensing or relaxing.

The site is hidden from the public road and is accessed from high ground on the landward side where the first experience is of an elevated view of the site and the sea beyond. Therefore the importance of the roof, or fifth façade, dictated a metal zinc cladding which is suitable for both walls and roof. Said façade, mimicking the seaweed found on the shores beyond. The anthracite colour of the zinc makes the building camouflage itself into the heather landscape.



The roof of both living areas is flipped and directed in opposite directions and towards particular points in the landscape and sunlight. Both living areas are fully glazed, thus embracing nature and developing a conversation with it. By way of contrast the sloped slit windows of the bedrooms act as a counter point to the absolute horizontal of the ocean horizon.

In order to emphasise the fact that the owners were embarking on a holiday each time they entered the house, the step and entry ramp at the front door is disconnected from the building thus making the visitor step over a gap not unlike stepping from the static platform onto a passing train. Thus a physical step from the day to day life into this adventurous house.

Layout
The plan form was inspired by the traditional narrow cottage and is orientated towards warm southern sun. It contains three sleeping cells and auxiliary spaces in the middle with two living areas, one at each end, connected by a library. Glazing is relative to the function of the rooms, with the centre bedrooms and auxiliary spaces horizontally glazed with small landscape framing windows, while the end living areas are wide open to the surrounding views.

The roof rain water is drained by way of gargoyles making one aware of the elements even in the lightest of showers, thus reinforcing the connection between inhabitant and nature.

Client's Comments

For us, ‘Tuath na Mara’ is wonderfully paradoxical: profoundly contextual and strikingly free-floating.

It is contextual in two senses: Firstly it speaks to the built experience of both our families, being the width of a house on the west coast that has been in the family for generations, and having the name and some of the shape of a house built by a Scottish grandparent (‘Tuath na Mara’ equally well in Scots and Irish Gaelic). Secondly it is rooted in the Donegal landscape, or more precisely in the inter-tidal seascape with which it shares its colour and, very nearly, its location. From the sea, it is virtually invisible.

But it is also free-floating, both in the way it sculpts light internally, and in the way its design is part of a cosmopolitan architectural conversation that is above national boundaries. This global-local interchange marks it out as capable of belonging only to the 21st century.

Results
MacGabhann Architects have made, as the client describes, a wonderful modern escape. With integrated reference to vernacular buildings and the landscape, without compromising aesthetics and impressive modern design, I'm confident that this is not the last we'll hear from them in great residential design.

Plans

Project: Tuath Na Mara
Architect: MacGabhann Architects
Team Credits: Tarla MacGabhann, Antoin MacGabhann, Niels Merschbrock & Barry Maguire
Completed: 2006-2007
Awards: Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, Public Choice Award
Best house 2008 Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, Irish Architecture Awards 2008
Photographic Credits: Dennis Gilbert - VIEW Pictures

via: MacGabhann Architects