The Hyper-Local House

 

Plex has entered a competition sponsored by FreeGreen, for a prototypical design for a house, which could be bought via internet and repeatedly used throughout the country. The purpose of this house is to be ecologically friendly and logical. We are calling our entry the “Hyper-Local House.”

The important aspect of this competition to consider is that this house design will not be designed for a specific site but, similar to many builders’ plans, bought and deposited in various sites, in various climates,  without the user necessarily thinking about it.  So rather than design a fashionable, low&long, horizontal wood slatted wood frame modern masterpiece (like many entrants have done), we chose to approach the problem of suburban sprawl at its roots. Three issues exist which continue to degrade the suburban condition which we decided to address.

The first is overdevelopment and overhardening of the earth’s crust. The more hardscape that is added to the earth increases surface runoff water, disrupting the naturally intended hydrological.  This is caused by both buildings and infrastructure, so we designed both to focus on this problem.  The most striking aspect of the house is its slimming at the base. With very little structural or financial efforts, current building technologies can accept large cantilevers. So the building sits on two separate bases, together totalling less than 50% of its widest projected area(the rectangular volume at the roof) this slimming reduces the footprint of the house and its affect on its site, and also gives it its striking formal identity.

The two bases which the house sits on are separated from each other, with a gap in the middle of the plan.  This gap, as well as the driveway, will be covered with crushed stone, rather than concrete. This material application will allow more rain to naturally drain into the ground as nature intended, and since there is less of an ecological impact, the crushed stone is brought through the middle of the site into the backyard. By connecting front and back yards, a more open and visible exterior condition is created, increasing awareness and safety no matter where you are located around the site.

When typical suburban plans are designed, no thought to cardinal direction is given. There is good reason for this, since in most suburbs, the roads are not designed around a grid, but an English-picturesque and Olmseadian concept of gently curving and rolling infrastructure. Therefore, the same house plan could be facing North, Southwest, Northeast, essentially any possible direction.  Since the biggest factor in interior heat gain and natural sunlight is obviously the sun, and the biggest factor in taking advantage of sunlight is the actual sun angles or path, the house’s orientation to the sun is of utmost importance. We designed a customizable panel system that will be flexible to take advantage of whatever cardinal direction the house faces. We realize that this house may face any orientation, so you cannot build a perfectly standard, typical house plan, such as every suburban builder does. A more flexible, intuitive system must be implemented.

Finally, there is a certain balance of technology and common sense that must be used to design an ecologically efficient home.  An architect could pack as many trendy, expensive, complicated systems into the house as possible, but these would most probably not be used, or at least not be used to their intended efficiency.  As building designers, we decided to use the actual architecture to solve this problem. By using the simple, ubiquitous technology of rooftop photovoltaic cells, you can power an entire house.  If a homeowner places 285 sf of cells pointing in an optimal direction(South), this can be achieved.  Therefore, we designed our house with four different roof configurations, allowing for optimal orientation to the sun. 0, 30, 60, and 90-degree options, which actually rotate the ridge of the house, modifying both the efficiency and the formal identity.

The most important aspect of ecological design is responding the the local environments of the project.  While this competition states that its paramount interest is being “green,” its really a non-starter since the requested design will be a prototypical one, bought by homeowners, rather than building design specialists or eco-experts.  So, since we are designing a mass-producable home with intention to be light in its ecological impact and customizeable to fit the exact site that it sits, we call our entry “The Hyper-Local House.”  The house, although prototypical, would actually be different if it faces South or Southwest. It would actually be different if it were built in Minneapolis or Albuquerque.

Filed under: Architecture, Competition

Niwa

Winter.

Summer.

Autumn.

Niwa is a residential competition entry that we submitted in October of 2007. The competition asked us to contemplate the changing relationship between exterior and interior space in modern architecture, especially in relation to the  importance placed upon it throughout Japanese architectural history.  While the city is becoming more and more dense, there must still be exterior space which affects and improves our lives.

Our proposal uses the exterior space, or garden in this case, as an architectural element, which is essential not only to the aesthetic and makeup of the exterior wall, but the program which functions immediately behind it.  Without the natural performance of the Niwa wall, the building could not properly function. Please see below the exact text which we submitted for this project.

—

The Synthesis of Function and Performance

The existence of Japanese gardens and the dynamism of pure nature have an inverse relationship. The more influential nature is on people, the less necessity there is for a garden. In pre-industrialized Japan, people were more aware of nature and its actions because they could not control it. But as humans’ ability to control nature has developed, the garden has become more important, but also more stale and inert. A parallel problem which has emerged is the general lack of space in urban and suburban residential neighborhoods.

We’re using the solution to the lack of space problem as a catalyst for a re-emergence of dynamism in humans’ relationship with nature: using the house’s exterior walls to grow a garden, and in tern, using this garden to define the interior of the house. Our architectural and natural solution to the lack of space problem creates an inherent bris soleil, which produces shade in the summertime because the plants are catching the majority of direct sunlight, leaving only indirect light to filter through to the residence. In the winter, however, deciduous plants die and the sun moves lower in the sky, letting light into desired spaces. By bringing natural plants directly up to the boundary of the house, we’re promoting and nearly forcing a direct observation of nature by the user.

In Spring, plants let in the fragrant smell of flowering blooms. In Summer, the user is surrounded by green, so that they truly are living IN a garden. In Autumn, the beautiful colors which are so often unseen in the most dense of urban areas are surrounding the user at all times. And in Winter, due to the lifespan of the plants, much needed sunlight easily streams in and warms the house.

Based on the interior spaces and their functions, the plantings are varied by either deciduous or coniferous in nature. The deciduous plants die in the winter, allowing the more public spaces, such as the entry and the living room to be visible from the outside, and for sunlight to come in and warm them up. The more private spaces such as the bathrooms and part of the bedrooms are surrounded by carniferous plants, which are fuller, allowing less vision in, and remain this way throughout the year.

Our proposal creates a synthesis between solving a functional problem [the lack of space sufficient enough to plant gardens] and performance [ the emergence of the house as a performative, dynamic garden rather than a static piece of art.]

Filed under: Architecture, Competition

Park Bench Competition Results

Plex Design recently participated in a Park Bench competition sponsored by the Nakasatsunai Art Village in Hokkaido, Japan and judged by Kazuyo Sejima.  Unfortunately, we were not selected as one of the finalists, but the good news is we are now able to show images of the model which we submitted. More material will follow soon, but this model was the only submission material allowed for this particular competition.

Our design continues Plex’s pursuit for humans to share space with nature in their everyday lives. Our idea came from the wonderful feeling one gets from lying in a field of wild flowers. By lowering the level of your body to the Earth, you are able to share space with the flowers and enter a new atmosphere that we are not often able to experience. Unfortunately, it can also be uncomfortable, dirty, and difficult for some people to achieve this position on the ground.  Therefore, we have used the level of the park bench as a new “ground” datum, so that as people move towards the Earth, the flowers also move UP towards the people – and meet in the middle, at the level of the park bench. The bench becomes the new ground.

The vertical elements of the bench legs are widened, and hollowed, allowing soil into each leg, tranforming the utilitarian legs into varying sizes of planter. Flowers, shrubs and small trees are planted, and these platers actually hold up the bench surface. When people then sit on the bench, they share the space with plant life, increasing their awareness of the Earth and its wild life.

Filed under: Competition, News, Photos, Product Design

Park Bench Competition

Plex has recently submitted a proposal for the Park Bench Competition sponsored by the Nakasatsunai Art Village, out of Hokkaido, Japan. We cannot say much at this moment because the judging has not taken place yet, but in our entry, we are continuing our pursuit for humans to more closely share space with nature. We’ll post images as soon as we can.

Filed under: Competition, Product Design