The architects came up with this cubist style timber extension which contrasts the old with the new. As well as this, the timber framework of the extension to the Georgian home is entirely reversible and thus can be removed quickly and easily at a future date, perhaps when it is sold on.

Environmental factors were a priority in the construction of this contemporary timber extension as well as care regarding the historical age and look of the property. Dry construction methods as well as good thermal insulation were designed during the planning of the architecture work. Due to the more traditional methods of woodwork and construction, trained craftsmen took on the role of building the timber extension.

Due to planning permission regulations, windows were to be a problem. Therefore the designs came up with a timber construction that was windowless but which still allowed light in and out. Sanded Perspex boards were used and these blended into the woodwork which gave the impression of a homogeneously clad timber box. Many of the timber boards were also painted in different colors thereby hiding the locations of the perspex boards except at night when the inner lights shone through.

As well as the three bathroom interiors there are also a complex system of piping inside the timber box extension to the Georgian house. A 150mm full width service duct runs down through the inside of the building to the ground level and below. Inside of this are the sewage, water and rainwater down pipes as well as electrical wiring, toilet cisterns and mechanical ventilation. This meant the outer façades of the timber box extension were left free of pipes which thus added to the overall aesthetics of the building.

You can see more pictures of this contemporary wooden extension building by visiting the arcitect’s website which can be found here: Henning Stummel Architects.

By the way, apparently this won the RIBA London Region Building of the Year award in 2005. RIBA being the Royal Institute of British Architects.

H/T: Contemporist.

Below are a series of pictures of the unique Wilkinson Residence which is located in Portland, Oregon. The tree house home is located on a steep sloping grade which provided the architect with the opportunity to build the main level of the tree house home at the level of the tree canopy. This evokes a truly breathtaking feeling of being in a traditional tree house. Few people will have ever seen the world from amongst the branches and leaves of trees they pass under on a daily basis.

Oshatz incorporated a musical theme into the tree house home which merged with the natural style and backdrop. The client was a great music lover and had asked the talented architect to combine the two themes. Materials used to make the tree house home merge with the flowing architectural forms and features, rather like the curve of a symphony or saxophone. Interior spaces flows outside with casual ease and vice versa.

An example of the stunning interior architecture of this tree house home is the way the natural wood ceiling passes through a wall of glass and wraps itself around the main living room.

The Wilkinson Residence tree house home was initially designed in 1997 and was completed in the year 2004. You can further pictures and projects by Oshatz on his website which can be found here: Robert Harvey Oshatz Architect.

The area is a popular location for Premiership soccer stars to set up home, Cheshire being a pretty location between the major footballing cities of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham. It’s therefore no surprise, that popular soccer stars, idolised by English football fans, want a private underground mansion all of their own.

The underground property is to be located beneath the landscaped gardens of an old Victorian apartment block located in the exclusive area of Devisdale. Despite the hidden quality to the underground mansion house, local residents still lodged complaints to the local authorities. Most cited the fact that the beautiful gardens will have to be dug up in order for the underground home to be constructed.

‘A lot of trees will be removed and the whole point of the conservation area is that the larger houses have lots of trees’, said one local. ‘Any new building in the area needs to be tasteful so they don’t lose the character of the area and going around digging houses in gardens definitely changes that.’

The Earth House, as the underground mansion is to be named, will consist of two-storeys and include three bedrooms and a swimming pool. Owners of the mansion will access the property via a front door disguised as a 2.6m-high garden folly. A spiral staircase will then lead to a main hallway and living quarters on the lower ground floor.

Natural light will enter the underground property through a large dome window behind the front door. As one might note from the artist’s impressions pictured above and below, the rooms are largely wedge-shaped so as to surround a central atrium.

On the same level as the living quarters, are a man reception area, kitchen and a master bedroom suite. Below this level, there are two more bedrooms, a gym plus a swimming pool and jacuzzi.

The developer of the property, Chris Oakes of Huntsmere, also highlights the eco-friendly aspect of the subterranean property, especially regarding insulation. An underfloor heating system will heat the underground home whilst hot water will be provided by a large-scale ground source heat pump. The latter of which uses specialist heat exchange technology to gather warmth in the ground to heat the house.

It’s estimated that these and the state-of-the-art ventilation system that will be fitted will reduce fossil fuel usage by 75% compared to a regular family home of the same size.

‘There are some very sensible and practical reasons for developing down as opposed to upwards. The property has very little impact on the surrounding environment’, said Mr Oakes. ‘It is easy to heat in winter and to keep cool in summer; and by incorporating the highest standards in renewable design solutions the energy demands of the building can be cut to almost zero’.

H/T: UK Daily Mail

The airtight nature of this eco-friendly home which coincidently has a spa, cinema and seven bedrooms, is the most important factor to the success and nature of the residence. The walls, as well as the ceilings and roof, have been hermetically sealed by a polyurethane blanket. This means no air whatsoever can escape or enter. One might think this is a death trap. Well, so did the British planning commission authorities who were eventually persuaded that it was all perfectly safe.

In order to avoid excess heat, stale air and an unbearable stuffiness, the whole interior landscape of the home is fixed up with a sophisticated ventilation system. The result is fresh filtered air that is brought into the house and then later expelled every couple of hours. The designer of the Barnsley Hill Farm eco-friendly home equates the ventilation system to that of a lung.

“Once every two hours the house is completely filled with fresh air. It’s like having the windows open all the time. … People think you need to insulate a house but a fridge only has a tiny bit of insulation. The most important thing is that a house is airtight.”

The airtight nature of the home means traditional heating fixtures such as fireplaces and central heating are redundant. In fact, this is the magic ingredient of this eco-friendly home. Excess engery wastage and pollution, not to mention money, is largely prevented and effectively reduced to a minimum.

“Fireplaces are the worst thing you could ever put in. They draw heat out of the room. Log burners are all right, but not fireplaces.”

The stale air from the home is channelled through a special heat exchange unit which enables the waste air to heat the fresh air as it enters. The fresh air comes through a separate part of the system which means there is no contamination. During the warmer months of the year, the unit uses a bypass system which prevents fresh air from being heated.

In a field nearby, out of view from the house, there is a solar park. Twenty solar panels captures the sun’s rays and then stores the resulting heat in rocks located beneath the ground. This heat is then distributed to the house and swimming pool if and when needed. Heat from the house, during the Summer months, is also stored in the rocks for Winter, in what can only be described as one hell of an ingenious environmentally friendly solution.

“The results are amazing. We are getting so much more energy than we expected.”

There are numerous other eco-friendly instillations in Barnsley Hill Farm. These include a sewage treatment plant which cleanses sewage and reverts it back to clean water. A different water recycling system also collects rain water which is stored for use with washing machines and the toilets.

The property is situated in a popular area with celebrities and even royalty. The English actress Liz Hurley has a house just over the fields from Barnsley Hill Farm. With this in mind, the renovators and owners of the airtight eco-friendly house hoped that it would attract a lot of people to buy the property. This has indeed become a reality with an assortment of politicians, environmentalists and celebs queuing up to be shown around.

All in all, the property uses just 10% of what a regular and similar sized home would use. It is also 100% carbon neutral as well as having a “humidity level of the Sahara desert”. The latter means there are no dust mites, condensation or unpleasant odors. In most other things, the former Cotswolds farmhouse retains much of the original architecture and interior features. These include some beautiful wooden beams which are present in much of the house, including the home cinema room, bathrooms and some bedrooms.

See: StoneBee Developments.

The setting is Coromandel Peninsula in the north of the country on the aptly named North Island. The intention of the designer was to recreate the traditional New Zealand building methods which included the crafting of wood into a modern expression of architecture. A connection to the natural world is provided by the very building materials used; sustainable and renewable timber from the local region.

The house is built in a simple rectangular fashion and has been erected on a patch of cleared bushland overlooking the Pacific ocean. One can assume its aim has been achieved in that the essential spirit of the New Zealand has been captured in the merging of the environment with traditional building techniques.

What is particularly interesting about the house is the open living room. There is no wall or window dividing the outside from the inside as one can see in this image. It’s almost like a camp-site, a popular hobby in New Zealand. The sleeping quarters are enclosed however. Notice the large fireplace that will be a much needed functional necessity during the Winter months.

Like the living room, the bathroom is also open to the elements. A wooden slatted floor allows for shower water to drain without the need for a cubicle. The bathtub is also highly manoeuvrable allowing for a dynamic bathing experience as close to the open deck as so desired.

You can see more pictures as well as further information about similar interior and architectural designs here: Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects.

Leon Stynen is probably the foremost Belgian architect of the 20th Century. The scope of his work was legendry and his works are seen throughout Belgium and indeed across Europe. His style can be considered close to that of the more internationally acclaimed designer LeCorbusier who Stynen was good friends with during the latter part of his career. They both also knew well one of the designers I studied most at Art School, one Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus.

Buildings designed by Leon Stynen include the Casino in Oostende (1949) and the Church of Harelbeke (1952), which in itself was an interesting piece of work merely for the fact that Stynen was rather anti-clerical.

The pictures below show the re-designed interiors of Stynen’s Antwerp home which was recently renovated. Much of the style and decor has been placed in a way that compliments and echoes the original style and period of his life. For anyone familiar with the works of the above designers, there will be a recognition of such features.

This wonderful spiral staircase brings to mind a quotation by the Czech playwright Vaclav Havel: “Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it.”

The proliferation of books adorning the walls is something I greatly appreciate in any interior space. Notice in most of the pictures, books seem to be everywhere. Wonderful!

Books!! A wall is never more beautiful than when its covered with books from floor to ceiling. Can you tell I am a bookworm?

You can see more images of Leon Stynen’s refurbished home in the Belgian city of Antwerp here: LEON STYNEN

Interesting, the family home which is situated in Notting Hill, has been dug 22 feet into the ground and rises no higher than 6 feet above ground level. This is due to the local council imposing a rule that any building in the then derelict piece of land could not rise above a certain height. Whether Michaelis knew of this caveat when he spent £750,000 on the plot is unknown. However, by putting his architectural skills into motion, he was able to come up with a solution and built a stylish home that family and friends enjoy, particularly children.

You can read more about Alex Michaelis and his stylish home in this Telegraph article from 2005.

If you were wondering what to do with your extra wide staircase then you might consider adding a slide like this one. Whether you have children or not, there are bound to be family members and guests who will enjoy sliding down your staircase. I wish I had one just so I could slide my cat down it.

A word of warning, don’t fit a slide instead of a stair lift for your granny. She won’t take too kindly to being hauled up and dropped down this type of staircase slide.

H/T: Designer Friend

This was the case when I visited the online Inglenook Decor Store owned by Maureen Toribio. It specialises in selling one-of-a-kind flea market finds. These four Old World Architectural Drawings as seen above come as a collection and cost $71.50. They would be perfectly situated in a home study or library with a classical charm.

Go on over and have a browse through her store and also check her visually pleasing blog Ingle Talk.

Patricia Gray, the award winning Interior Designer, locates an example of southern European style which has attracted artists, writers and dreamers for decades. The stylishly spacious house was designed by the German architect Erwien Wachter. To any design connoisseur, there is a clear indication that his influence was the work of the German-American architect Mies van der Rohe.

Visit Patricia Grey’s blog for more stunning pictures of this “secret place” house on the Spanish island of Ibiza. It’s actually available for rent if you are a friend of the owner. Maybe they would accept the gift of my young cat in exchange for two weeks board.