Tweeting on housing: Co.Design

via @FastCoDesign (Feb 12, 2012):

“America has changed dramatically since the 20th-century rise and proliferation of the suburban single-family home (and we’re not just talking about an influx of immigrants, but also more single-parent families, multi-generation families, and so on). The housing stock has not. Gang and Lindsay show how elegant little design tweaks here and there can redefine home ownership to better reflect both the social and financial realities of Americans today.”

Read the rest of the Co.Design article here. Read its source content, written by Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay and published in the New York Times, here.

Rendering of “The Garden in the Machine,” a proposal by Studio Gang “for transforming the inner-ring suburb of Cicero, Illinois, to better meet the living and working needs of its residents.” The proposal was developed for The Museum of Modern Art’s Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream exhibition.

February 19’s daily design idea is a quote from the Times article by Gang and Lindsay: “instead of forcing families to fit into a house, what if we rearranged the house to fit them?”

Swooning, the east coast edition.

The last time you caught me swooning (a word I refuse to take lightly), it was over the residential design for 12+Adler in Portland, by Skylab Architecture.

Today I bring you two more swoon-worthy designs, from the city of New York. Interestingly, they’re also both residential again (I wonder what that says about me?).

First up: the two-story, light-filled library and reading room from an oh-so-shwanky Tribeca loft that I have actually visited in person. And yes, the space really is as wonderful as it looks in this photo (though perhaps a touch more cluttered).

photo via Dying of Cute

Second up: the location used in the movie Last Night as the main characters’ home. I particularly can’t stop thinking about the almost-everything-fits-under-the-counter kitchen (and its freestanding sinks).

images from Last Night, with production design by Tim Grimes

February 15’s daily design idea is what do the spaces that linger in your memory say about you?

12 + Adler = actual swooning.

Ok, the word “swoon” is so overused in design blogs that it’s ridiculous. That said, the residential part of this mixed-use project by Skylab Architecture [warning: despite their amazing work, Skylab’s flash-crazy site may cause motion sickness] has actually caused me to become enraptured.

living, dining, and kitchen of 12+Adler by Skylab Architecture, photo by John Clark

Located at 12th and Adler in the southwest quadrant of Portland, this amazing space is home to Jeff Kovel (founder of Skylab Architecture) and his family. The final project boasts adaptive reuse, site sensitivity, high ceilings, a roof deck, open floor plans, and – frankly – just great style. Did I mention that I’m swooning?

a (very) carefully constructed opening in the living room looks onto the church across the street and appears as if “a skylight has bled into a window”; 12+Adler by Skylab Architecture, photo by John Clark

via Dwell (April, 2007):

“The ramshackle building that has become 12 + Alder serves as the office for Skylab Design, the storefront for  the furniture shop Intelligent Design, space for the salon D Studio, and home to the Kovel family. Erected in 1907, the building has housed a messenger service, a boardinghouse, a storage space, a gay bathhouse, and more recently, a store selling fine, handmade men’s lingerie.

Manly underthings aside, for years the West End’s only architectural draw was the First Presbyterian Church, a stately Victorian Gothic just across the street from 12 + Alder. “The church is amazing,” Kovel says with clear admiration for the sanctuary designed by William E. McCaw, Richard Martin, Jr., and Manson White in 1890. “It was a real no-man’s-land down here, and one of the things we wanted to do when building 12 + Alder was to feed off the church and to extend the context of [the] architectural experience.”

While the modernist glass-and-steel façade is an aesthetic departure from the First Presbyterian’s design, the clearest and grandest example of Kovel’s dialogue with the church comes in his open, uncluttered 2,000-square-foot residence on the second floor. “When it was a bathhouse in the ’70s, there was this pitched skylight that looked up to the steeple.” Kovel kept that detail in the bathroom, but wanted an even more sweeping statement for the living room.”

More photos available on the Dwell slideshow (by John Clark), or on Skylab Architecture’s website.

March 15’s daily design idea is swoon like you mean it!

Design Exercise: Pink Zebra

At my day job, we’ve been doing a lot of research on interior furnishings this past month, so I’ve been subconsciously thinking a lot more about interior design and decoration than I normally would. In honor of this, I wanted to share a few conceptual combinations that I’ve been playing around with.

First up is Pink Zebra!

the inspiration

the combination

the components: La Lampe Gras (No. 214) by Holly Hunt, Strut Medium Table from Blu Dot, chair from Think Black Line by Nendo

On a side note, I don’t think the Nendo chairs are actually meant for sitting on… but HAY’s Spider Woman chair would be a good alternative and/or adding in a Zebra Cowhide Cube from Design Within Reach.

the variation

Update: Making Waves (a newly discovered FLOR carpet tile) is one more variation to through into the mix. I’d probably do Pink or Earthen – or a mix of the two.

December 7’s daily design idea is boldly feminine colors are a great way to warm up a tubular steel look.

A super sized brief for a “tiny huge design contest”.

In an effort to personally demonstrate how to “save money, radically reduce our environmental impact, and have a freer, less complicated life,” Treehugger founder Graham Hill has opened up a design contest for renovating a 420sf New York apartment. Called “LifeEdited,” the contest has been set up with Mutopo and Jovoto as an open forum to “propose, discuss and evaluate designs” for super small residential spaces.

existing plan and photo of Southeastern bedroom at 150 Sullivan, both via Treehugger’s Flickr set

Here’s the challenging, but super exciting, Creative Brief for LifeEdited:

Challenge

Design a jewel box of an ultra-low-footprint apartment in 420sf (~39 m2).

Background

What if we could save money, radically reduce our environmental impact, and have a freer, less complicated life?

Treehugger founder Graham Hill has part of the answer: we need to have less stuff and live in smaller spaces, like the 420sf (~39 m2) apartment he will renovate in 2011. With some design and technology magic, we think 420 square feet can allow for working at home, space for 2 guests to stay over, a sit-down dinner for 12, lounge space for 8, and maybe even a steam room.

So we’re asking you to redesign a small space thinking about these core ideas:

• transforming space – use one space for work, play, sleep, guests
• digitize everything – photos, books, music
• from ownership to access – think Netflix, Zipcar, Airbnb, etc.
• only the essentials – cut down on extraneous stuff, leaving only what’s really necessary

The winning concept will be used in a renovation of a 420sf apartment in New York City in mid 2011. Ideas will remain online as reference, to inspire and encourage others to rethink how they buy, rent, renovate and furnish their future properties.

Task Definition

Create a design based on Graham Hill’s 420 sf apartment. The design needs to support the life of a real person in the apartment – someone who works, eats, lives, and entertains. We’re looking for apartment designs that allow for:

• a sit-down dinner for 12
• a comfortable lounging option for 8 people
• space for 2 guests with some visual and ideally auditory privacy
• a home office
• a work area with space for a rolling tool chest
• a hideable kitchen

As the room function is changed, it should not feel like you are sleeping in your office or eating in your bedroom. At the same time, it should be easy and quick enough to change the room function that one would actually do it.

We believe feedback and conversation can help you improve your ideas. You have the ability to post and update your entry at any time up until the submission deadline — and we highly encourage you to do so. In return, you’ll receive feedback from Graham, your peers, and our jurors.

Resources

Photos of the space we’ll be renovating are available in this Flickr set.

For those who have AutoCAD, DWG files are available here.

If you don’t have AutoCAD, there are still plenty of ways to get involved! Google Sketchup is a free 3D modeling tool with a huge library of pre-made components available. We’ve created the basic plan for the apartment that you can use as a starting point, available here.

Floorplans and concept sketches are also great submissions. Here are floor and elevation diagrams in PNG form, and more detailed ones in PDF are available here.

photo of fire escape at 150 Sullivan, both via Treehugger’s Flickr set

Ready to sign up? Check out these other examples of living small and thinking big if you want some further inspiration.

December 4’s daily design idea is applying your creativity to real world situations will help develop real world solutions.

Construction Has Begun on the Two Point Five

Re-blogged from Postgreen Homes.
Written by Nic Darling.
Originally posted October 7, 2010.
© 2010 Postgreen

“After a variety of the usual permitting and financing delays we have finally begun construction of the Two Point Five. As usual this process begins with a hole . . .

This single house is already sold and we are in a hurry to get it up for the nice folks waiting to move in. Of course, this phase of construction is very dependent on the cooperation of the weather and may be further complicated by the distractions of another possible World Series run by the Phillies (Go Phils!). However, even with all of those factors we are still confident in Hybrid Construction’s ability to build this house quickly. Stay tuned for regular construction updates and plenty of additional details as we progress.”

>> October 7’s daily design idea is stay tuned in on your favorite projects; more and more designers are moving towards transparency in their process.

The next generation of work-from-home space?

With the recession economy once again resulting in increased numbers of entrepreneurial ventures and more of my peers freelancing than ever, I’ve had an eye out for good design solutions for the home office. Design Milk seems to have discovered a great answer in ecospace’s WorkPod, one of five “backyard offices.” Some of the designs look a little too bubble-like for my taste, but I can actually imagine the WorkPod being quite a successful addition to many homes (especially multi-person homes).

Its overall spirit reminds me of an entry for last year’s Reburbia competition: “Entrepreneurbia: Rezoning Suburbia for Self-Sustaining Life“. Like WorkPod, this project also brings work and home into the same fundamental sphere while keeping them physically separate, though Entrepreneurbia pushes the concept further by proposing zoning policy to support the model of mixed-use plots.

May 10’s daily design idea is consider the barriers (of space and time) between your work space and your living space, and then consider the potential impact of a change in those barriers. Whether you work from home or not, how could you redesign them for a better transition between work and play?