Architecture Archives - Page 5 of 13

This Week in Wood: Modern Timber Addition to a Victorian Home

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Jeff Easterling

Looking at the front of this home in Balaclava, Australia, what you’ll see is a traditional Victorian characteristic of the neighborhood, with a modest white facade, twin chimneys and a picket fence. But walk around the side and the personality of the residence swiftly shifts to a striking modern volume clad in timber slats.

Coy Yiontis Architects created an addition for the two-story home that makes no attempt to blend into the vernacular architecture, choosing instead to make a strong visual statement with wood as the primary material.

“The renovation and addition to this partly 2-story home was designed to accommodate an extended family of eight on a relatively modest site within a dense urban context,” the architects explain. “A bedroom for each of the four children, one for the parents and another possibly for grandparents, generous living spaces and a swimming pool were key to the brief.”

The old and new volumes of the home are separated by a courtyard housing the pool, each of the wings surrounding it opening to this outdoor space with expansive glazed walls. The warmth and character of the wood is brought inside as well, contrasting with smooth white surfaces.

School Destroyed by an Earthquake Gets Stunning Pine Re-Build

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Jeff Easterling

The simplicity of pine painted stark white gives this rebuilt school in Chile a bright, welcoming look and feel to bring cheer back to the neighborhood after much of it was destroyed by a major earthquake in 2010. The school lost half its facilities in the disaster, leading Constitucion city officials to order a major overhaul and extension from LAND Arquitectos.

The architecture firm chose pine not only because it’s a local material, making it inexpensive and eco-friendly, but also to encourage the use of wood in architecture throughout the city as it continues to be rebuilt. The use of all white and design of the columns gives it a sunny Mediterranean atmosphere.

In addition to adding extra classrooms, the architects built a new chapel with an asymmetric roof that mimics local rock formations seen along the coast.

“We used local pine wood as the main material for the project and furnishings, promoting and encouraging the use of wood in reconstruction of the city,” the architects say. “We wanted to rebuild the city’s identity using materials that are locally accessible and easily replicable building techniques.”

This Week in Wood: More Modern Pine Structures by Kengo Kuma

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Jeff Easterling

Leave it to Japanese architect Kengo Kuma to continuously re-imagine what buildings primarily made of wood can look like, putting lumber to use in the most unexpected ways. We previously featured a few of Kuma’s strikingly unconventional designs which include criss-crossing slats, artistic arrangements of ceiling beams and interwoven poles, often incorporating Japan’s ancient joinery techniques.

This time, Kuma has helped create a light-filled community space along with a team of graduate students from the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley. ‘Nest We Grow’ brings quintessentially Californian ideas about architecture to Asia, with a focus on renewable materials.

The award-winning design focuses on a heavy timber construction technique using large sections of wood, which is a new concept in Japan, where columns are usually made up of smaller composite pieces. Says the design team, “It took considerable effort to identify a way to join materials, which was influenced by both local carpentry practices and the Japanese material market.”

“The wood frame structure mimics the vertical spatial experience of a Japanese larch forest from which food is hung to grow and dry. A tea platform in the middle of the nest creates a gathering space where the community can visually and physically enjoy food around a sunken fireplace. Local foods make up the elevation of the Nest as people see the food forest floating above the landform.”

White Pine Architecture: Beautiful Barns by Keystone

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Jeff Easterling

The versatility of white pine lends itself to all sorts of architectural applications, from crisp modern beach houses and complex ceiling designs in gymnasiums to its more traditional uses in rural New England-style farmhouses and barns. Here are some examples of the latter via Keystone Barns, a Pennsylvania company specializing in custom barns with beautifully finished interiors.

Many of these barns are built using Eastern White Pine, including gorgeous tongue-and-groove boards that give each structure a warmth and comforting sense of simplicity. Some are left unfinished for a more rustic look, while others are just as lovingly crafted as full-scale houses.

And if you love the look of barns so much you’d like to claim a livable version as your own abode, Keystone also builds homes with barn-inspired aesthetics. Options include car garages, lofts, apartments and lean-tos as well as barns and sheds designed specifically for livestock purposes. See more at KeystoneBarns.com.

Green Getaway: Relaxing Writing Retreat Made of Eastern White Pine

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Jeff Easterling

The warmth of Eastern White Pine gives the interior of this writing retreat in rural Vermont a cozy and welcoming feeling. Designed by architect Milford Cushman and built by Montpelier Construction, this three-level home is a green cottage crafted with sustainability in mind, the compact 16-by-40 footprint fitting neatly onto a steel hill on a small parcel of land.

The vacation home was designed for a pair of academics and writers who wanted a custom-built retreat on a budget, maximizing warmth and light from the south despite the north-facing layout of the site. It features an open floe plan on the central level, lots of glass for looking out onto the landscape, and an entry-porch covered by a shed roof.

The builders chose Eastern White Pine for the floors, ceilings, cabinets and trim, leaving these surfaces minimally finished to let the wood’s natural beauty shine. Based in Vermont, Cushman Design Group frequently uses this local and eco-friendly material in their designs, including the beautiful barn-inspired Goose Farm residence.

Architectural Monographs: Charleston’s Charming Edwards-Smyth House

Posted on November 18, 2014October 21, 2021 by Jeff Easterling

Better known today as the Pineapple Gates House for the large finials on its large brick and decorative wrought iron gates (which are actually supposed to be Italian pine cones), the Simmons-Edwards House of Charleston, South Carolina remains among the city’s most distinguished over 200 years after it was built. When this monograph was written in 1928, it was known as the Edwards-Smyth House. It’s a prime example of classic British architecture of the time that was adapted for a sub-tropical climate, bearing a few hints here and there of a Caribbean influence.

Writes the author, “It is the thoroughly studied assurance displayed in combining all of the elements, the piazzas, the gates, the fence, the dependencies and the garden into a unified scheme that mark it as the work of more than the amateur. Many other houses in Charleston have employed all of these elements but none have combined them more happily.”

Every historic architectural detail of the home is examined in this issue of the historic White Pine Monographs, from the ornate ornamentation of the plaster ceiling in the hall to the very Charleston multi-storied piazza. Read about what makes this house a Charleston classic and see historic photographs taken in the 1920s at the White Pine Monograph Library.