Abiquiu House by Anderson Anderson Architecture

Designed by Anderson Anderson Architecture The Abiquiu House uses several relatively standard prefabrication systems, its located on a small New Mexico town on a desert site fronting the Rio Chama in New Mexico.



Description from the architects:

Designed for an anthropologist and a concert pianist, retiring from Phoenix, Arizona, to this small New Mexico town on a desert site fronting the Rio Chama—not far from Georgia O’Keefe’s famous home on the bluff above this house uses several relatively standard prefabrication systems. SIPs are used for the wall panels only, while the roof and floors are constructed of prefabricated 2×4 long-span trusses. Although it was originally intended to use panels as the roof and floor structure as well, the house was switched shortly before construction to a truss system to simplify the assembly and to reduce the structural lumber splines required in the long spans of the panels.

The owners have a number of animals, dogs and cats and occasional injured strays that they were concerned with protecting from the prevalent local hawks, eagles, coyotes, and rattlesnakes. Rather than compromise the design with the addition of a retrofitted chain link dog run, we developed a thoroughly integrated animal house. For budget reasons, local contextualism, and appropriately barnyard practicality, we settled on chain link as a major material system for the house, protecting domestic animals and people from other animals or from accidental falls from the upper terraces.

Chain link is an ingenious prefabricated system that can be rolled out and hung from above like curtains, stretched and bolted to the walls and frames with large, round, specially cut steel washers that can be inexpensively manufactured in quantity and made available as modular parts in the system. In some places the chain link stands away from the house, providing enclosure to exterior living spaces, and in other areas it hugs tight to the steel-siding-clad wall surfaces, providing visual continuity and textural relief to the large flat planes while at the same time providing a trellis for creeping plants that will grow up from the ground to further soften the profile of the house.

Modern House Design in Spain by XPIRALesign

Luxury modern homes design located in Murcia, Spain designed by Javier Peña Galiano at XPIRAL. The house site located among pines acts as an interface between domestic life and the land. It is a device that allows inhabiting the plot. It is not a house for vacation but for daily use. In this way, the whole space is for the enjoyment of its inhabitants.

The lower area is voided in the mountain, inlaid with the uses that hardly require sunlight and the main access to the upper floor. Between this access and the one to the plot, the shadow of the cantilevered upper area creates an exterior suburban hall, thought as a car access.

The upper part is a staple shaped piece stuck to the rock. It remains suspended, and generates in its hollow, south and east façades that let the sun and the breeze in the habitable space. The central courtyard gives maximum openness between inside and outside, without a lack of privacy. Walls are completely transparent so, by night, when lights are lit, all the spaces of the house become one unitary space.

House Janelas Verdes by Pedro Domingos Arquitectos

Architects: Pedro Domingos Arquitectos
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Collaborators: João Graça, Margarida Faria
Project year: 2008
Constructed area: 280 sqm
Budget: US $130,290
Client: Ara, Alves Rodrigues, Associado Lda.
Photographs: FG + SG - Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra

The project consist in the reconstruction of building of XIX century, inserted in the Lapa/Prazeres district. The pre-existing build was in an advanced degree of degradation, the facades and the sidewalls was the usable structure. The strategy was to replace the old “organ” - the interior structure of wood and plaster, by a new one, also of wood and plaster, trying to get the compatibility of the whole “body.”