January 27, 2006
Closing
Done. Not much to report. We brought youngest boy with us. He ate rasins and had a minor flip out. I was out of town for three days and Christiane has been home with him so when we look at him we don't see the same child. I see cutie-pie-dumbell-wanna-fly-like-batman and she's just waiting for his head to spin around. So, maybe it was a major flip out. Hope I didn't sign something I shouldn't have.
Can we have our dumpster now?
Posted by David at 12:37 PM | Comments (1)
January 23, 2006
5304 Agatha Circle
This is a concept home in a new neighborhood called Agave in East Austin. I like the variety of depth of the front elevation and the contrasting angular nature of the roof lines.
Unfortunately, most of the floorplans of the homes designed for this neighborhood seem to be rather clunky. They remind me of apartments I have lived in. This seems to be because the lots are extremely narrow (50x100 in most cases). This forces the homes into a long, narrow hallway of a building.
But there were other details I noticed, like how the living/dining/kitchen areas are all open to one another, something that doesn't really work when kids are watching cartoons in the livingroom and you're trying to have adult conversation (or just some quiet time) in the kitchen. Also, most of the homes don't have a "public" bathroom, or if they do it is located in an odd spot (the one I've highlighted actually has a nicely located half-bath, one of the few).
I love how all of these houses have lots of windows, but in the Texas summer heat we really have to watch window placement. David and worked hard to come up with a design that allowed as little heat into the house as possible on the southwest wall of the house. The glass windows and doors leading to the backyard will be double paned, low-E, and the rest will have screens and/or awnings.
Looking at other house designs, after spending 7 months designing our own, has given me an appreciation for truly efficient, usable (or livable) design.
I recommend Small Houses and The Very Small Home if you are trying to get away from the faux efficiency of designs featured in The Not-So-Big House (note to Susanna Susanka: 3000sf is big, for real).
Click on the pic for details.
Posted by Christiane at 12:45 PM | Comments (3)
January 20, 2006
Exterior of the House and Pattern Languages
For the last couple of days I have been thinking about the exterior design of the house in terms of elements found in our neighborhood. My obsession with this may be the fact that the 3 largest features of the house are not consistent with the other houses. These are:
1. 2 Stories
2. Shed Roof
3. Upstairs Deck
So the challenge is, how would a 2 story, shed roof house with a balcony have been built in 1951 in Crestview. So we're covering the house with patterns that are found all over Crestview.
This will be better with photos, but for now I'm just taking notes.
1. Notched roof edge, really wide eaves - Firehouse on Grover
2. 12 inch lap siding, 6 inch flat siding - everywhere
3. Mixed siding - many houses
4. double hung windows with wood frame screen - everywhere
5. Casement windows - slightly common, maybe 1/4 of houses
6. mixed casement and double hung - common on all houses with casement
7. painted front door - only replaced doors are wood grain
8. low slope roof, 12:2 - very common and unique to this area
9. carport, no garage - attached garages are very rare
I realized that I had internalized this way of looking at architecture and had completely forgotten about the Christopher Alexander book that got me started. I’m thinking that clearly communicating the features that are designed to match the neighborhood might help with acceptance of the design by my neighbors. Maybe a sign or flyers in the front yard with photos from around Crestview.
Posted by David at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)