Bridge House by Stanley Saitowitz
In Marin, California, this modern home designed by architect Stanley Saitowitz sits in marked contrast to its natural surroundings. The long, narrow stucture spans a rocky ravine from east to west, bridging two sides of the hilly property. The strict linear shape of the home is balanced by its exterior Cor-Ten cladding. The steel cladding was allowed to weather naturally, which resulted in a deep red patina of surface rust. Large glass panels alternate with the Cor-Ten, allowing residents views from high above the ravine. At one side of the home, a sloping concrete driveway leads to an entrance courtyard, while a pool runs perpendicular to the home at the opposite end. Interior spaces reflect the exterior aesthetic in their linearity.
See more images of the Bridge House after the jump.
The Falkirk Wheel
In Falkirk, Scotland, city officials were faced with the task of connecting two waterways, vertically separated by a distance of 24 meters. These particular waterways were particularly vital to span due to their capacity to connect the Scottish capital of Edinburgh and its second city, Glasgow. Originally connected by a system of 11 locks and several canals, the connection eventually closed when the system fell into disrepair. Over the ensuing decades, they were filled and the land was developed.
To remedy the lack of connection between cities, the steampunk inspired Falkirk Wheel was constructed. Funded by the UK National Lottery, it cost 32 million pounds and was completed in 2002. The wheel operates on Archimedes’ Principle, which states that a floating object will always displace its weight in water. The two containers at either end of the wheel are kept in balance until a vessel is loaded. Once it is loaded and balanced, operators discharge enough water from the lower container to allow the heavier upper container to swing down under the force of gravity.
The Falkirk Wheel, aside from providing a vital and functional link between two cities, has become a veritable tourist attraction. It is open to the public and even features a museum and is portrayed on Scotland’s 50 pound note.
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JE Design Scirocco TDI
Ja, what’s your hybrid sound like? Those power-hungry Germans at JE Design have tweaked the sport and fuel efficient TDI Scirocco, giving us just one more reason to move across the pond. An ECU tweak bumps horsepower to a mundane 180bhp, but raises the torque to 400Nm (just shy of 300lb-ft). Such improvements take almost a full second off the car’s 0-60 time, which is an impressive feat for such a simple change. From a styling standpoint, a full body kit is available (front spoiler, side skirts, and a rear skirt to work with the center-exit exhaust), in addition to gullwing doors, a stainless steel exhaust system, lowering springs, and custom wheels. Customers can purchase parts seperately from JE Design.
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Big Dig House by Single Speed Design
Boston’s Big Dig, an ongoing traffic rerouting project through the heart of downtown, has produced all manner of discarded infrastructure since it’s commencement in 1991. Cambridge architecture firm Single Speed Design conceptualized and built this home that repurposes nearly 600,000 pounds of that material. Nearly all of the steel and concrete used in the structure of the 4,300 square foot Massachusetts home came from a dismantled portion of the I-93 highway. Using predetermined structural elements forced Single Speed Design to plan extensively, particularly when considering how to keep the home at a human scale. The massive steel structure and concrete piers are strong visual forces on the home’s exterior, but it manages to remain distinctly residential and inviting. The load bearing capacity of the home’s structure allowed the owners to implement extensive gardens on all of the flat roof surfaces. Most importantly, this project demonstrates how material salvaged from public works projects can be repurposed and given new life. Single Speed Design points out that these high-strength materials could easily be implemented in large-scale, public use buildings such as schools and libraries.
See more images of the Bid Dig House after the jump.
OMNI: Future Sound Speakers
True, Altec Lansing’s Omni Speakers distinctive spaced-out aesthetic may get all the attention, but it’s the superior sound quality that really sets this pair apart. For the audiophile who definitively doesn’t crave design subtlety, each omni-directional speaker features a woofer, mid-range speaker and tweeter, all phonically separated by a ceramic plate. With heavy construction to ensure little vibration and a top-mounted cone to equally distribute sound, here’s hoping these Nuno Teixeira-designed soundships blast out of concept phase soon.
More images after the jump.
Chalkidos Street Residence by Armon Architects
Introversion was the driving force behind the striking design of the Chalkidos Street Residence. Designed by Armon Choros Architektonikis for a reticent art collector, the Cyprus residence utilizes an immense curved concrete wall to shield an interior courtyard and most of the home’s exterior windows. The wall is fenestrated by openings high along its west side which cast patterns of daylight into the exterior and interior spaces. A lap pool in the courtyard also pierces through the wall’s south side at the street level, allowing the public a brief glimpse into the home. The interior is composed of vertical planes, placed specifically to showcase the owner’s extensive art collection.
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Glass Roof House by Sambuichi Architects
The Base Valley House, designed by Japanese architect Hiroshi Sambuichi, was constructed with its natural context acting as a guiding principle. Sambuichi strives to extensively analyze the site of his projects, ensuring that they respond as sensitively as possible to their environment. Consequently, the Base Valley House is located primarily underground, where the existing mass of a hillside provides passive climate control. Augmenting the thermal qualities of the earth, a “wind street” is cut through the center of the hill to provide natural ventilation. The most visible portion of the house is its angular glass roof, which allows generous amounts of daylight into the interior and covers an outdoor deck, where the family that inhabits the home can enjoy views of the adjacent river and mountains.
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Dancing Living House by Junichi Sampei
Designing and building a new house on the urban outskirts of Tokyo is a daunting task, and the owners of the Dancing and Living House proposed an especially difficult project to Japanese architect Junichi Sampei. They requested that a full dance studio be incorporated into the design of their home. From the exterior, passing pedestrians are provided with little indication of the house’s interior content. An imposing white cube floats above a covered parking spot, with a lone window in the uppermost corner providing the only fenestration. Upon entering however, a unique juxtaposition is revealed. One level above the street, a single open room houses the kitchen, dining area, living area, and dance studio. Furniture is repositionable depending upon room usage, and the requisite floor to ceiling mirrors of the dance studio serve to visually enlarge the space. A level above the studio houses bedrooms, which incorporate large windows and skylights paired with glass floor panels to bring light down into the lower levels. A stark white color scheme also helps to keep the interior bright and open.
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Max Ernst Museum by Smo Architektur
At the former Brühl Pavilion, a museum has been opened in memory of surrealist painter Max Ernst, 33 years after his death. The new museum includes a remodel of the neoclassical pavilion as well as a thoroughly modern addition. From the exterior, the pavilion itself remains largely unaltered, save for some restorative efforts. The addition, however, is a steel framed glass volume that abruptly intersects the center of the original building. Despite the odd exterior coupling of styles, modernism becomes the cohesive theme once inside. Extensive subterranean display spaces stretch beneath the site, utilizing tall concrete walls, glass railings, and steel detailing to create a vault-like atmosphere. Given Ernst’s surrealist roots, the union of old and new is quite appropriate.
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The Wolfback Ridge FlatPak House
Architect Charlie Lazor has been at the forefront of prefabricated architecture in recent years with his creation of the FlatPak system. Designs are based on eight foot wide, one story tall wall panels, and size and configuration are otherwise limited only by the imagination and budget of the client. Lazor also created a series of kitchen and bath components and storage solutions that integrate directly into the system. The Wolfback FlatPak house was recently completed in Sausalito, California. At 4200 square feet, it is a particularly large example of a FlatPak home, complete with five bedrooms and a view of the San Francisco Bay. Like most homes created with Lazor’s system, the Wolfback house is dictated by relative linearity. Exterior walls are mostly glass, with dark wood siding separating the first and second floor. Inside, spaces are expansive and undivided. The first floor employs a black, polished concrete floor to minimize the inevitable maintenance that comes with the large sliding glass doors that open the interior to the environment. Elsewhere, a material palette of wood and stone reflects the home’s natural surroundings.
See more images of the Wolfback Ridge FlatPak House after the jump.
