Humble House for Hamilton

Here is why I call myself a "humble house designer": A humble wee house -- one of two, for the same extended family -- on a small well-surrounded site in Hamilton.

See of you can deduce the connection between this house, and Frank Lloyd Wright's explanation of what he means by the term organic architecture ....

Recent Project: Malvern Hills: 'Wind Screen'

I've been dreadful at posting new projects here, mainly because I've been busy designing them rather than posting about them, but I'd like to catch up a bit. There are quite a few to show you!

This project here began being discussed two years ago. It's for a very exposed very steeply sloping site in Wellington. That's just Wellington, right -- but this one is a little different: with the very steeply sloping site comes striking views right across the harbour: which makes it extremely exposed -- both to the public eye and to the weather.

And as they say, Wellington doesn't have a climate. It has weather.

The strategy, a simple one, is to hang the house between the retaining walls that are needed to hold up the street, and the cantilever beams sprouting in pinwheel fashion from a single large concrete pile. This takes account of the sloping-site problem. One enters and sleeps at the top level, lives on the middle level, and offers children and guests sleeping and play space at the bottom.

Did I say "simple"?

Once out of the ground, the house needs to deal with the weather problem. Because this house doesn't just have slope: with that slope comes both the spectacular views over the harbour that make it worth building there, and all the winds of Aeolus sent to batter anyone daring to step outside to see it.

Trouble. But as they say, problems are an architect's friend!

View from the proposed roof terrace: spectacular view; spectacular wind!

So how to solve this problem? The answer is a "wind screen" built around the drum containing our lower floor and protected terraces.

Add these windscreens around the outer drum, intersect this with the main circular drum, add trees and vines, mix all ingredients sagaciously on this sloping site and you have this house -- or nearly so. From there it almost designs itself!

Concept

Concept Plan

The house that designs itself:
add retaining walls and one three-storey drum to a sloping site; to that add
an intersecting drum with wind-screen,
an open terrace extending the view back to the city,
and trees and vines
and voila!

Can you see this rising from the hills above the Wellington Harbour? A strong form making it easily seen even at great distance.

And while the screen looks a little 'heavy' in the pictures, our windscreen is an almost diaphanous perforated metal screen, lightweight, decorated and visually permeable. A light steel veil draped over the drum and cinched down tight; a "breathable" screen, with sections easily slid away on Wellington's intermittent but glorious good days.

This Cultural Centre in Corsica gives you an idea of just how visually permeable a fine-grained steel 'veil' can be:

Cultural Centre in Bastia, by Paris Studio DDA

And this house in Israel shows how permeable (yet still sheltered) a coarse-grained perforated screen can be.

Pitsou Kedem's 'MA' House' in Israel

And this here is our screen, suggesting how decorated our screens can be; perforated metal being an ideal material to take integral decoration, we have added ornament based upon the interlocking circles of our two "drums." The effect in the sun is dramatic!:

Visually permeable perforated decorated metal screen, rejoicing in the sunlight (above) -- and rendered in red below:

Drums in the sun

The perforated metal is used to create a see-through screen that offers protection from the wind on the main terrace overlooking the harbour, with other open decks (that can be used on better days) that take the visitor further out to enjoy views over the central city.

View out to open terrace

 The perforated metal drum continues from base to top floor, piercing floors all the way up to form the balustrade at our entry level. Each of our levels, of course, enjoy spectacular views!

View from day bed on upper level

View from built-in seating at 'back' of lounge

These axonometric cutaway plans of each level should give you some idea of how it all comes together ...

[Hat tips, of course, to Sullivan, Botta, Melnikov..]

A notice to all readers ... an Organon Architecture home of your own?

An important notice to all readers: If you want to get your hands on a ready-made pre-loved home by Organon Architecture, then here is your chance -- a home in Hamilton very much loved by its owners, who are moving to a new opportunity and new home in another city so need to find the right owner for this one.

Says the blurb:

The design is timeless, the combination of raked ceilings and lowered 'ceiling decks' cleverly defines spaces within the open-plan living areas.
When featured in House 'n' Lifestyle magazine, this property was described as '... a meld of dwelling and garden that's innovative, subtle and clever.'

So if you or anyone you know is in the market for a place set in landscaped native bush and just a stroll away from downtown Hamilton, give this some serious thought.

[Photos by Lodge Real Estate]

Getting a flower out of the system instead of a weed

"There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's where the light gets in."
~ Leonard Cohen

Weeds abound. Weeds can be found in every suburb, and every magazine. Weeds are what we get out of the system when we all try least hardest. But why live in a weed for twenty years or more just because the system makes building and buying weeds easier than it is to produce a flower? And why go to the effort of building yourself if the final result of all that angst and energy is just another weed.

We use this frequently as a slogan -- getting a flower out of the system instead of a weed -- but it's a slogan that we really mean. The weeds the system throws up don't interest us. The flowers we can grow out of it do. Immensely.

This is what we do every day here at Organon Architecture: work to get a flower out of the system instead of a weed. With the system now more grotesque now than it's ever been, it's never been more important.

It means we place as much emphasis in designing your home on the process of design and discovery as we do in the final product -- much of the design process involving finding out who you are and your ideal place in which to live.

It means we're designing your special place, not just something that suits every passer-by -- we do what you might do if you were a good architect.

That means that we don't know when we start where, and how, the process will end up -- it's always an open exploration, with the discovery and construction of your dream the final goal!

It means we know the rules (and there are many of them!) not simply to blindly follow them, but in order to find and exploit the loopholes -- to let the light get in through those cracks; because in this system it's not the weeds that the grow up within the cracks and crannies (they're everywhere, and in industrial quantities) --  it's the flowers. And they need careful tending.

It does mean the whole process may take longer -- but flowers always do need more care and attention than a weed.

And a weed you can get anywhere, every day of the week.

Flowers are much harder to grow. But worth it.

Housing: Variety through repetition

 

Designing a house form that works and that can be replicated to produce variety is fun, and economical, but not straightforward.

This project, by Organon Architecture, has 36 houses of two types; two types whose lower floors are identical and whose upper floors differ only in their orientation – and in that difference lies the difference that produces the difference: two house types in which the way they come together creates the structure of the composition, produces the interest, creates (with the simple form becoming complex by repetition and the relationship to the other repeated units) creating the relationship of composition to landscape.

Repetition means ease of assembly. Repetition means making use of industrialisation to reduce costs and waste. Repetition, here, producing variety instead of conformity.

That’s they way nature does it. That’s the way to make it work.

I think it does.

Could you live here?

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Montessori School, by Organon Architecture

So some of you have been suggesting I start posting more regular art and architecture posts again. And others have suggested I post more of what I’m designing myself.

So at the risk of boring my other reader, and the troll, here’s something that’s on the board at the moment: a new Montessori school, with 3 classrooms, quiet decks, parents space, shared kitchen, internal garden ...

Pakuranga Renovation – Organon Architecture

Here’s an interesting project I’ve been working on recently—renovation designs for an existing house in Pakuranga. In essence, it involves the surgical insertion of a new steel and concrete upper floor over an existing one-storey, flat-roofed house (above), to add extra accommodation, and give a new double-height lounge (below).

It’s been fun to work on. And should be great to live in.

(Cross-posted at the Organon Architecture Blog)

Van Oostrom House – Organon Architecture

 

I couldn’t be happier with how this house has turned out – and from their enthusiasm I sense my clients would say the same.

I posted it here a few years back (here and here), but now the plants have matured – and since it’s been featured in the Waikato Times this month, I figured it was about time I showed it here in all its glory.

Who would have thought this could be found just five minutes from the centre of Hamilton.

The Waikato Times called it “an outstanding Hamilton home, surely one that is among the finest ‘House ‘n’ Lifestyle’ has featured.” Naturally, I agree with them . . .  but I bet they say that about every house. ;^)

The house offers a private front to the street, and opens out from within to four landscaped ‘courtyards’ created to integrate site and house.

I won’t say too much here, since you can read about it in the ‘House n’ Lifestyle’ feature linked below – but seeing a house completed to this standard and the clients enjoying it as they are is the reason I do this job: to bring their dreams into reality by doing what they would do if they were a good architect.

[Photos by AvO]

• Floor Plan
• Elevations
• Feature in Waikato Times ‘House n’ Lifestyle’ section [6MB to download]
• More photos, courtesy AvO.
• Visit my (imminently updated) Organon Architecture website.
• Book a Design Consultation with me [PDF] so you can get started on building your own dream to come home to.

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Labels: Architecture, Organon Architecture

Project: Dargaville extension – Organon Architecture

Here’s a simple wee project I’ve been working on to extend a small existing house with a family area opening up to a protected outside courtyard, and to add on a sleep-out/studio with an open outside-eating spot between to enjoy cooling summer breezes.