Perfect Proportions Define a Pleasing Desert Home
The Brown Residence designed by Lake|Flato Architects, in Scottsdale, Arizona has a mathematical rightness to it.
Precise proportions prevail throughout, from the perfect firepit to the terraced levels up to the modular glazing.
Elegant vertical hinging allows the slimmest of steel doors to swing wide.
The glazing is designed to bring the winter desert sun far in to the interior.
Every room gazes far out over the dry desert landscape of Arizona.
A corten steel screen is like a work of art, perfectly offset by quirky cactus-like outdoor seating.
The quietest beiges lap the sleeper in luxurious repose.
This is a home for a client who finds comfort and a quiet pleasure in the most scrupulously perfect proportions.
Passage of Landscape creates a Transparent Connection to Fields Beyond
Architecture firm ihrmk created this intriguingly transparent view-through home in the Japanese countryside after a summertime visit to the site.
The house is made transparent from south to north on the first floor – but from east to west on the second floor.
The east west windows bring in the beginning and the end of the day to meet the client’s brief “we want to awake in the morning sunlight”, “we want to doze in the comfortable breeze”
Sited right at the edge of the suburbs of Toyota, it maximises the connection with the paddy fields to the south and the west.
To participate in the flow of the surrounding natural environment, windows pop up in surprising places.
An induction cooktop is suspend right in the window of the kitchen.
The suburb-facing side is translucent.
“Bright green and reflection of water of the rice field just after the rice-planting, natural sounds of breeze rusting the leaves of lemon trees and Magnolia figo slightly and sound of running water from the waterway had created comfortable scenery there,” says the architect of his first site visit.
“It was calm place and there was nothing to cutting off my view from the site.”
Drawing on that summertime visit, the architects have made a relaxed haven that exudes peacefulness.
Indoor-Outdoor Living for House by Prado in Chile
Swett House is a private home designed by Prado Arquitectos in Chiguayante.
The site is at the bottom of a narrow valley surrounded by hills, and gets only short periods of sun exposure.
So the conceptual idea of the project was to gain height to maximise the sun exposure into the home.
A second story allows the brief exposure to the sun to warm the home for the maximum possible hours.
The idea was to support the second story on a series of steel columns inside a glass enclosure.
The horizontal fenestration, with continuous transparent planes is framed by the steel plates.
This contains the social areas; living room, dining room, barbecue and kitchen on the first level, maintaining a close relationship between the exterior and interior space.
Outdoor living prevails on the ground under the house.
The indoor-outdoor flow is accentuated by interior treatments like the ceiling of this outdoor room panelled in wooden beams.
The steel structure supports the second floor with minimal materiality (just steel and glass) containing the upper level housing the private living room and bedrooms.