Completed by Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning studio SANAA eight years after the Japanese firm’s proposal won an international competition for the new building, Sydney Modern adds 7,000 square meters (about 75,350 square feet) of gallery space to the existing Art Gallery of New South Wales. It officially opened to the public on December 3rd.

The new addition connects to the original art gallery, a neoclassical-style building designed by British architect Walter Vernon and completed in 1909, via a public garden “land bridge.” It consists of a series of stepped platforms that give it a stacked, low-profile appearance from a distance — certainly a contrast to the bold, graphic Opera House and its unforgettable silhouette.

For SANAA, the point wasn’t to rival that monument. It was to create an appropriate building for the site, with its stunning views of Woolloomooloo Bay and a backdrop of the city skyline. SANAA principal architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa wanted the building to be harmonious with its surroundings, “one that breathes with the city, the park, and the harbor.”

“There are two ways to create a landmark, which depends on the landscape,” says Nishizawa. “If you are in an open site, a landmark can appear with a positive form and clear outline, like a rock. But if you are in a forest with all its trees, this doesn’t work. You have to create a clearing and allow the sunlight in. But the light in the forest doesn’t have a clear outline. This is a very different way to create an icon.”

The effect may be subtle architecturally, but its impact on the museum certainly isn’t. The addition’s rectilinear pavilions are arranged around a central glass-walled atrium with views of the water. Courtyards and rooftop terraces grant the upper levels a series of outdoor areas for open-air events, and the lower levels are made with rammed earth, anchoring them to the site.

Interior spaces include large exhibition rooms, including one solely dedicated to aboriginal art and another two with soaring 18-foot ceilings. Smaller exhibition rooms are devoted to children’s learning spaces and a studio for creating multimedia artworks. A large, columned underground art space repurposed from a decommissioned World War II naval oil tank will offer another 2,200 square meters (23,680 square feet) for special commissions and performances.

The new land bridge reconnects the art gallery to the city’s Royal Botanic Garden, allowing pedestrian movement from the Woolloomooloo to the city center and creating an entirely public space in the process. The garden atop the land bridge is named “bial gwiyuno” (the fire is not yet lighted) and includes both indigenous plant species and an installation by Australian artist Jonathan Jones.

“The Sydney Modern Project allows us to engage our audiences and work with our artists in thrilling new ways,” says Maud Page, Deputy Director and Director of Collections for the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The post Sydney Modern is Australia’s Most Iconic Architecture Since the Sydney Opera House first appeared on Dornob.

The roughly 322 square feet of Zhima Health’s “Beijing Youli” store at the new Universal Beijing Resort posed a significant challenge to WUUX and its founder Wang Yong. That small space was to be the first stop for visitors coming to experience the thrill of movie magic in the Chinese iteration of the Universal Studios theme park.

The designers had to somehow create a space that provided both function and “strong emotional value” for visitors to the park. Taking inspiration from the Hollywood blockbuster Inception, Yong infinitely expanded the small square footage with a series of steel arches and ceiling-mounted staircases that appear to be replicating themselves from multiple points in the room.

“The entire space, thanks to the arches and stair structures, resembles an unfolded accordion which is waking up the folded time and space,” explains the Beijing-based firm.

The design started with five tall mirrored steel arches that run the length of the store and intersect each other at the midpoint of the ceiling. Then three blonde wood “endless ladders” were positioned to look like they were coming out of the walls from above. To achieve this psychedelic look, Wong and his team added full-length mirrors on the back wall and the ceiling. Finally, the rammed earth walls were outfitted with display space for Zhima Health products, which in turn get visually boomeranged throughout the M.C. Escher-like space.

“‘A whole glass on the ceiling and one side of the wall, together with the stretching structures that present a distortion in time and space, seems to have eliminated the boundary of the room and distorted time in a dazzling way,” says Wong of the design. “With light projecting from underneath the ground and structured light belts on the arches, a metaverse is throwing its arms wide open to all customers.”

As the first stop off the subway into the park, the Zhima Health Beijing Youli store fulfills its call to “carry on the essence while pursuing innovations” of the time-honored brands it stocks. The illusion of warped reality provides an ideal realm for social networking and grabbing a refreshing drink before entering the theme park for a day of thrills.

WUUX’s eye-catching store has been hailed as a “disruptive new retail experience” that caters to the “diversified preferences” of China’s youth that also “conforms to resort culture.”

Since being founded in 2015 by Wang Yong, Wuxiang Architecture Design Studio has been involved in everything from interior design and architecture to environmental art design and space art consultation. The firm “pays attention to the sense of temperature in space and is dedicated to the purpose behind things.” The Zhima Health store at Universal Studios Beijing is the latest in a long list of work WUUX has done in commercial real estate, hotels and resorts, high-end clubs, corporate space customization, and retail experience stores.

The post Inception-Inspired Universal Studios Store Appears to Infinitely Unfold on Itself first appeared on Dornob.

Rammed earth buildings can be found all over the world, but they’re usually medium to large in size. Have you ever heard of anyone using this alternative building method to craft a tiny house? Architects Merve nur Başer, Aslı Erdem, and Fatma Zeyneb Önsiper did just that with “The Rammed Earth House,” designed for the grassy flatlands of Dobrava, Slovenia.

Created as part of an architecture competition, the design concept is unusual in a few ways. It consists not just of rammed earth walls, but also a rammed earth roof, which is itself protected by a secondary green roof that shades it. Stretching out past the dimensions of the rammed earth peak beneath it, this secondary timber roof is pitched to let in winter sunlight on the south facade, where solar panels are located.

“The traditional form with the pitched roofs and windows expanding from those, is reinterpreted in a new way by experimenting with the rammed earth material,” the architects explain. “We aimed to use rammed earth material as much as possible in the design and wanted to create a holistic approach by building the house with rammed earth from the ground to the roof. We intended to merge traditional and modern by trying experimental forms and materials.”

Inside, an open plan with large triangular windows makes the home feel surprisingly spacious given its limited footprint. Rammed earth walls tend to be quite wide, and in this case they provide both a warm, comforting ambiance and deep window ledges that double as seats. The fireplace is in the northwest corner and has few windows to minimize heat loss in winter. The kitchen, living area, and fireplace are all visible from the lofted bedroom, where occupants can also watch the stars or the sunset.

The project was inspired by the team’s admiration for the seemingly “levitating” roof designed by Slovenian architect Oton Jugovec. The Dobrava Floating Roof reduces shelter to its most minimalist form, consisting of just a roof supported by two pillars. Jugovec himself drew from the influences of traditional Slovenian hay racks found throughout the countryside.

The Rammed Earth House ultimately puts a contemporary spin on these vernacular aesthetics while achieving natural passive heating, cross ventilation, solar electricity, and rainwater collection and reuse. Set on a concrete foundation, it features a wrap-around oak deck and a pass-through to the kitchen for seasonal outdoor living. The lush green roof disguises it from above and mimics the feel of a tree’s canopy, integrating the structure with the surrounding forest.

The post The Roof of This Rammed Earth Tiny House Feels Like a Leafy Canopy first appeared on Dornob.

Rosselli’s “The Great Wall of WA” was selected as a finalist in the Australian Institute of Architects Western Australia architecture awards, and won “best housing project” in ArchDaily’s Building of the Year contest in 2016. Despite being highly energy-efficient, earth-sheltered architecture still isn’t very common around the world, even in areas like Pilbara that could really benefit from the extra protection from the heat. This collective housing project demonstrates what a great choice it can be in certain climates and shows off the beauty of rammed earth, to boot.

Designed as guest houses for a 100-year-old family cattle station, the farmer residences that make up the new complex are accented by Cor-Ten steel canopies, matching the roof of an oval chapel that sits upon the new artificial dune overlooking the family cemetery. Each guest house is also stepped to maintain a level of privacy indoors and out, with only the verandahs visible from outside. The awnings keep the sun from penetrating the glass doors to the interiors.

The back end of each guest house tapers down toward an existing building used as a communal meeting area and lounge, which itself features a pergola made of old drilling pipes. The striking chapel, inspired by the Pantheon of Rome, its oriented to the east and pierced by a glass-covered oculus. Sliding curved glass windows can be opened to the air or closed to protect against dust storms.

“With their 450-mm thick rammed earth facade and the sand dune to their rear and forming their roofs, the residences have the best thermal mass available, making them naturally cool in the subtropical climate,” says the firm. “The design of the accommodation represents a new approach to remote North Western Australia architecture, moving away from the sun baked, thin corrugated metal shelters to naturally cooled architectural earth formations.”

“Rammed earth extracted from the local clay pans, pebbles, and gravel quarried from the river bed are the palette of materials that blend into the landscape. Internally, one finds a comfortable environment, cooled by the rammed earth walls and the meter-deep sand hill. The interior design by Sarah Foletta is a restrained, natural, and robust selection of materials and furniture.”

The complex blends beautifully into its scenic setting, and as always, the rammed earth has a stunning striated appearance thanks to the way it’s constructed. Framework, usually made of parallel plywood panels, is filled with a layer of damp earth and compressed to about half of its original volume with a pneumatic tamper. The process is repeated and the forms removed, revealing a strong, naturally pigmented wall.

Though it doesn’t have the best thermal performance on its own, combining rammed earth with earth-sheltering is a sustainable technique making use of abundant local resources and reducing or eliminating the need for mechanical heating and cooling systems.

The post 12 Homes Tucked Into “Great Wall” of Rammed Earth in Australia first appeared on Dornob.

Rammed earth is almost as ancient as architecture itself. This construction technique compresses locally available natural raw materials like dirt, clay, chalk, lime, and gravel between flat panels called formwork to produce hard-packed bricks that stand the test of time. Many rammed earth structures still standing today, including the Great Wall of China and the Alhambra in Spain, were built over 1,000 years ago.

The local materials and formwork used give each rammed earth project its own unique look, and the result is just as attractive as it is low-cost and sustainable. The thick walls keep indoor spaces comfortable, even in the hottest, driest climates, and no finishing is needed inside or out.

The practice of building with rammed earth may have fallen out of favor in past decades, but a recent resurgence gives us new examples of what this material can really do. In Accra, Ghana, architecture firm Tzou Lubroth has created a stunning modern rammed earth residence and studio for an artist, incorporating natural ventilation, gallery spaces, a swimming pool, outdoor areas, and views of the sea.

The rammed earth construction lends layered pastel red, pink and beige tones to the two-story live/work complex, making it look like just as much of a work of art as the client’s own creations. Louvered wooden shades complement the natural materials and let in plenty of fresh air. Arched doorways and clumps of desert plants root it in the visuals of its location, while a dramatic shimmering silver staircase connects the private areas to the public ones.

The firm explains that they “were asked by the artist Amoako Boafo to develop a hybrid typology that brings together a home, a painter’s studio, a gallery, and facilities for three artists-in-residence. The project was motivated by the artist’s desire to return to Accra with the mission of bringing a newfound energy to the city’s art scene. A lack of contemporary art venues and opportunities for exchange between local and foreign artists was as important to Mr. Boako as his need to establish his studio in his homeland after long periods of being abroad.”

“The house consists of two volumes interacting through slight shifts in geometry. The artist’s house and studio occupy one volume, while the residences, dining areas, and public gallery occupy the other. At the center of the courtyard, a circular staircase leads from the pool to the public gallery. By hybridizing public and private programs, the house had to become something new, something more that a mere dwelling. Rammed earth walls and galvanized steel platforms and railings combine to form a sculpted environment that is at once rigid yet earthbound and free.”

Loving the look of rammed earth? There’s lots more inspiration where this project came from. DUST Architects completed a gorgeous contemporary desert home surrounded by cacti, complete with a rooftop deck for taking in views of the dramatic landscape. Another modern rammed earth home in New Mexico has a roofline you’d never expect from this type of construction, but the effect feels fun and fresh all the same. And in China, the crumbling remains of a traditional “yaodong” cave house have been transformed with a new rammed earth insert by hyperSity Architects to gorgeous effect.

The post House Gallery Boafo: Modern Rammed Earth in Ghana first appeared on Dornob.

It’s a loss for Wright’s legacy, for the school’s 30 current students, and for the world of architecture, particularly considering how interesting Taliesin student creations tend to be. Incorporating key elements like sustainability, natural materials, and harmony with the surrounding landscape, these temporary structures — particularly those in the Sonoran Desert at Taliesin West — are anything but typical. Here are a few of the students’ standout structures.

Simon de Aguero created this unusual wide-open desert home almost entirely from found scraps and local materials, with a core structure built out of rammed earth. The core design is an abstracted tribute to the way boulders jut out of the earth in the desert, with a stretched vinyl shade hovering like clouds overhead. And since the climate in question precludes the need for full walls, windows, or doors, the design really enables a refreshing level of interaction with nature. The ability to build a fire beneath the bed platform is a particularly cool feature.

“Little Shelters” is a collaborative student project built with a $2,000 budget using as many on-site resources as possible. Daniel Chapman, Mark-Thomas Cordova, Jaime Inostroza, Dylan Kessler, Pablo Moncayo, Natasha Vemulkonda, and Pierre Verbruggen spent 12 weeks constructing two shared shelters and a gathering space that could be used and maintained by future students, as well.

Student Jaime Inostroza also created the Atalaya Shelter, which is rooted in a desire to deeply understand the landscape itself. The design sprang into his mind when he first encountered the perfect site for it. He explains: “It was like secret place hidden in the wash, covered by the shadows of the trees and looking out at the wash and the desert. The entrance to the site is shaped by the Alameda of Palos Verdes. This creates the aperture to the site, and at sunset the site becomes a distiller of the light. The mountains are now with purple in color. The landscape is an opera of colors.”

“From that observation of the site, my principle was to develop an entrance procession that would let me dwell within the horizon of the Alameda of the Palos Verdes. Because of that the name of the project is ‘Atalaya,’ which means crow’s nest. It is the highest point from the boat where you can see the horizon across the ocean. I used the existing concrete pad like a plinth that holds this structure and continued the procession with a combination wall-stair. The shelter will be covered with fabric panels that will amplify the colors of the desert.”

Taliesin West also inspired architects and designers who weren’t students there, including Kate Brown, who created the sculptural Etazin Chair specifically for the school. Made of steel, the circular eight-foot lounger features an inner ring that can spin to face any direction the user desires. It’s on permanent installation at the school, placed among the student shelters in the desert.

You can read more about what it was like for students to live and work at Taliesin West, in their own words, at ArchDaily.

The post Standout Projects from Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s School of Architecture first appeared on Dornob.

The Bed & Breakfast Santulan is one such project, set in the desert of Baja California, Mexico. Completed in 2019 and designed by architecture firm Santos Bolívar, this scattering of structures combines vernacular and modern aesthetics and materials into a seamless whole that feels fully at home in its surroundings. Made of rammed earth bricks, the upper parts of each volume have a more traditional appearance, and when viewed from afar, they seem to be floating above the sand and cacti below.

But each of these buildings is actually set upon a faceted, mirrored modern plinth, which themselves reflect various scenes around the property. Depending on the angle of the facet, that might be the red earth, the blue sky, or the faint gray mountains. Floating concrete staircases connect the buildings to the ground, and a long walkway leads into a striking subterranean geodesic dome conceived as a place for meditation.

“Santulan” means “balance” in Hindi, explains lead architect José Antonio de los Santos Bolívar, and that word is the guiding concept used for the development of the entire complex. The architect wanted the hotel to be both a tourist destination and an example of a culture of respect and balance with the ecosystem, both from visitors and from the architecture itself.

“We wanted to break with the architectural typology of a hotel that develops its services within a same volumetric body. [A]fter incessantly analyzing the site and its geographical and natural qualities, we made the decision to project its architectural program in different buildings interconnected by means of walkways that interact directly with nature and are architects of an invitation to live different spiritual and architectural experiences. [We also attempted] to make these walkers the result of the analysis of the traces of the OM mantra symbol, a part of an integral design that seeks the balance between architecture, nature, mind, and spirit.”

In addition to using blocks of compacted earth as a main building material, the hotel includes other ecologically sensitive features like greywater recycling wetlands, a fog catcher tower to capture water from the air, low-maintenance green roofs planted with native grasses, an organic orchard, low-water landscaping, and a natural cross-ventilation system. All of these considerations add to the peaceful and low-impact atmosphere of the hotel, which is augmented by the unusual nature of its reflective architecture.

Bed & Breakfast Santulan is the architect’s second project in Baja California’s Valle de Guadalupe. The first was the Media Perra Brewery, which uses similar materials alongside strategically folded metal facades that help shade the interiors from the harsh desert sun. The adobe blocks seen in this 2014 project are a trademark of the native Kumiai people who live nearby. Both projects achieve a sense of harmony with the landscape and traditions of the area, as well as the era in which they’re being built.

The post Optical Illusion Bed & Breakfast Appears to Float Above the Desert Landscape first appeared on Dornob.

Last December, CalEarth closed its doors to the public for a series of updates required by county and city codes, but it has since re-opened its doors to provide inspiration to all those who seek it, and its lessons feel more relevant than ever before. Run by Dastan and Sheefteh Khalili since the death of their father, the institute shows off the capabilities of “SuperAdobe” in an almost otherworldly-looking display on its sun-drenched grounds.

SuperAdobe is a form of earthbag architecture developed by Nader Khalili, and it doesn’t require much more than some long sandbags, barbed wire, earth dug on-site, and a few tools. Not only does this natural building system enable sculptural, organic shapes, it’s also extremely strong, earthquake-resistant, and easy to learn. Considering the fact that CalEarth believes entire families should be able to participate in building, from elderly grandparents to the youngest children, it seems only natural that the institute would adopt this technique. The bags are filled in place using small pots and kitchen utensils, and there’s no heavy lifting or machinery required.

Inspired by traditional earth architecture found in the deserts of Iran, CalEarth’s structures range from a small emergency shelter for one person that can be expanded into a rapidly-built village to entire three-bedroom houses with two-car garages. Some standout examples include the 400-square-foot Eco Dome, the modular Earth One Vaulted House featuring radiant floor slab heating and solar power, a “Water Village” full of coiled and plastered huts, and a “Fire Village” with integrated rocket stove heaters, among many more.

The CalEarth team explains: “The building process is intentionally simple, but the structural integrity of SuperAdobe is the result of years of research. The structural design uses modern engineering concepts like base-isolation and post-tensioning. The long coils of sandbag provide compression (vertical) strength, while the barbed wire adds tensile (horizontal) strength. In addition, the sandbags add flood resistance. The earth itself provides insulation and fire-proofing.”

“The arch is the strongest form in architecture and has been used in building for thousands of years. A dome is simply an arch rotated 180 degrees. SuperAdobe is extremely well-suited for building arches, domes, and vaults, and SuperAdobe domes are extremely strong structures. They have passed California earthquake code tests and withstood a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Nepal. Using geometry and a simple compass tool, builders can easily create corbelled dome structures of various heights and up to 22 feet in diameter.”

Visitors are welcome to attend open houses held on the first Saturday of every month to experience the structures for themselves, which are often likened to the huts of Tattooine in the Star Wars films. You can also book tours by appointment, bring a group of students on a field trip, or volunteer to help prep, build, or manage some of the institute’s operations. While CalEarth began as a way to empower refugees and the poor to build their own natural-disaster-resistant homes, it has since grown into an international program of apprenticeships and workshops, with its full curriculum is available online.

The post CalEarth Reopens to Provide Low-Cost Eco Building Inspiration first appeared on Dornob.

Simply put, the style just works, which explains why hyperSity Architects stuck with it when completing a dramatic renovation for Chinese internet personality Ye Liangchen. At the start of the project, all the team had to work with were the crumbling remains of a yaodong home in Weinan. Outdated and on the verge of collapse, the 540-square-foot residence hearkened back to a time when a lack of indoor plumbing was the norm, and its interiors were dark and dank to say the least. Some of its excavated rooms were set 36 feet below the grassy surface of the hill. To make the home structurally sound again, they’d have to remove almost all of the original elements and replace them with modern equivalents that would still stand the test of time.

Their solution? Attractive and unusually durable rammed earth, which is just another way of defining the ancient practice of building structures out of raw materials like sand, clay, gravel, and lime. In China, it’s known as “hangtu,” and evidence of its use can be found everywhere from the Great Wall to the Neolithic archaeological sites along the Yellow River. Though older examples of rammed earth typically had a more brick-like appearance, modern rammed earth constructions are often characterized by long, thin layers of compacted materials tinted with natural pigments like iron oxide.

The architects took the identifying elements of yaodong and crafted them into a contemporary dwelling with stunning results. To honor tradition and avoid eclipsing the remains of the older yaodong houses nearby, the architects kept the same rough dimensions of the original home, using mixed clay and sand from the tops of surrounding mountains to create a highly specific shade of rammed earth that reflected local building traditions. These materials are environmentally friendly and low cost by nature.

In rebuilding the home, the architects also gave it a brand new layout, working in a dynamic series of courtyards to create an interplay of in and outdoor spaces within a walled envelope and quite literally bringing nature into the house.

“The architect intends to maximize the outdoor space visually and psychologically,” explains hyperSity. “Hence, five scattered courtyard landscapes are created within the compound and connected through a zigzag path similar to the Chinese garden to create a tranquil atmosphere and infinite spatial experience. These areas also enable fresh air and daylight to enter every single room.”

“The application of rammed earth not only reflects the local building traditions, but also brings in the strength and permanence of stone with the warmth and simplicity of wood…rural people deserve a modern life and ample modern facilities. However, rural areas should not be the lower versions of the city, and [they] should not be the followers of the city. Instead, it should maintain the intimated relations to the sky and the land.”

The post Cave House: A Modern Rammed Earth Construction in China first appeared on Dornob.

Like the majestic Saguaro cacti that surround the site, this Scottsdale, Arizona courtyard house rises from the earth and meets the sky gracefully and with perfect style. It was designed by Wendell Burnette Architects to perfectly tuck into a clearing amongst granite outcroppings in the lovely desert setting.

The Desert Courtyard House is so named thanks to its most impressive feature: a glass-wrapped courtyard that offers the resident a serene space. The protected space provides privacy, tranquility, fresh air, and a fire pit that lights up even the darkest of desert nights.

Tranquil Monolithic Design

The home really did evolve and grow from the site on which it stands; it was built using the rammed-earth method using soil excavated directly from the building site. The home is meant to be viewed as one continuous line: a serene monument in the middle of this truly incredible setting.

A primordial connection with the desert landscape means that this unique home looks like it belongs here and only here. At one entrance, a Zen garden-like expanse of clean, light sand welcomes residents and visitors to this singularly spectacular home.

Luxury Desert Style

Inside, a clean and modern interior with recessed track lighting and rounded lines softens and provides a contrast to the earth, concrete, and sand exterior.

Finally, a “hat” on the building protects it from wind, sun, rain, and erosion. It also serves to help the home melt into its surroundings almost seamlessly. Land and sky are united in a perfect marriage of materials and location, with the home paying due tribute to the extraordinary landscape it occupies.

Learn more about the architects:

“Wendell Burnette Architects is an internationally recognized architectural practice based in Phoenix, Arizona. Our portfolio of work includes a wide range of private and public projects. The specific focus of the practice is concerned with space and light, context and place, and with the environment and landscapes in which we live.”

“The architecture of the firm responds to the specifics of site and client needs, is resourceful in regards to budget, takes a pro-active approach to the craft of building, and strives to create spaces that engage people. The recent public and private commissions of the studio evidence our desire to be an active member of the communities in which we work and the physical shaping of those places regardless of locale.”

The post Dramatic Desert Courtyard House Blends Seamlessly with the Landscape first appeared on Dornob.

A mix of styles can make or break a home design – whether it works here is for you to judge. Clearly combining elements of Prairie Style Modernism with ancient Chinese and Japanese architectural traditions, this cliff-top residence along the Malibu Beach coast is at once large and luxurious and yet also somehow understated on such a landscape-dominated property.

Simple steel, stone, concrete, wood and (above all) rammed earth blend in well with the dark browns and greens of the natural environment.?Simultaneously, the horizontal focus of the three core structures (from flat interior ceilings and simple horizontal beams to projecting exterior porch roofs) continuously draws the eye back out to the water beyond the site.

While much of the plot is left to grow natural plants and trees, a flat-pressed lawn and flush-faced pool are sunken in to allow for views out to the ocean below – though, to be fair, a clean-cropped lawn does feel a bit out of place in such a wild rocky and tree-filled landscape.

Full floor-to-ceiling, garage-door-sized panels open up to provide cross-ventilation during warm summer months and a direct outdoor connection.

Some might find the overall small-scale design and simple-plan spaces a bit dull or overly modest in context, but really: how can you begin to compete with such an exterior space? Olsen Kundig Architects could well have tried, but may not have succeeded so well as they did by working to emphasize the natural environment.

“Located close to a well-known surfing spot, Slaughterhouse Beach House expands the concept of a traditional surfing hut with three connected huts—general living quarters, guest suites, and a main sleeping area. The huts’ corrugated metal roofs take their inspiration from traditional Hawaiian roofs (as popularized by the architect C. W. Dickey), which help to naturally ventilate the islands’ indigenous structures. Studies of the site revealed virtually constant winds. Using the Dickey-style roof as a starting point, the design was turbocharged, deliberately shaping roof forms and openings to allow breezes to pull hot air out.”

The post Waterfront Cliff House Made of Rammed Earth first appeared on Dornob.

That idea of using mud straight from the Earth – rammed into brick shapes or layered in rows – is one of the oldest building techniques known to humanity. The recent resurgence of interest in red-and-brown ‘rammed-earth‘ building designs may be a ‘green’ trend … but it is also a brilliant (and beautiful) way to save money by factoring local materials, and cheap construction techniques older than written history into even simple home plans.

Whether formed first into clay bricks or layered within forms (often used for on-site concrete construction), the naturally variegated textures and local earthen colors in rammed earth buildings become a core part of the aesthetic when a structure is finished.

In areas like Arizona where dirt and mud are far more plentiful than wood or stone, people turn to this classic building method out of necessity but also find that the designs can blend in remarkable ways with their surrounding environments. The Kendle Designs residence pictured here, for example, shows how creative use of sweeping planes and thin horizontals can tie architecture to the landscape in evocative ways.

Inside of this home, the thick walls provide natural insulation and thermal energy storage – absorbing heat from the sun during the day to be released slowly at night in the summer and keeping the inside warmth from leaving in cold winter months.

More from the architects

“A tremendous site paired with a contemporary minimalist vision with high regard for the native desert inspire the design of this home. Oriented on an axis to maximize the lake views and careful screening of neighbors concentrates one’s full attention to the natural environment.”

“Landscaped courtyards provide further privacy to this ‘see-through’ home while encouraging outdoor living. A soaring copper roof floats above the thick rammed-earth walls to draw in additional light and catch glimpses of the sky.”

The post Rammed Earth: Modern Mud Home with an Awesome Angular Roof first appeared on Dornob.

There is something about the high-desert prairie lands that indeed seems to invite the long lines and simple naturalistic materials that date back to Frank Lloyd Wright and the so-called Prairie Style approach to designing and building homes. In this case, however, novel techniques and new materials make this modern desert residence a kind of bridge between the stylistic past and a more sustainable future.

The interplay of void and solid, spaces and planes, that define this structure are more then merely modernist affectations in section and plan – they are a means of blocking out excess solar energy while capturing natural light, leading it all the way to the basement of the building. These more contemporary, rational and linear moves are also balanced by rustic colors and rusted materials.

Weathering steel shows intentional rust to blend the house with the surrounding hues of the natural landscape, while rammed earth bricks add to the effect while also making use of local eco-friendly materials – the color of the clay naturally matching the surrounding dirt from which it came. Wood accents add another layer, cut in simple patterns so their variation speaks for itself. The interior design exhibits similarly variegated colors and textures but is likewise Modernist in shape and form.

Here’s what architecture firm PIQUE has to say about their High Desert Pavilion home:

“Central Oregon is known for its access to a variety of outdoor sports. The region’s variety of climates provides a unique opportunity to access a myriad of activity types in the same season. It is not uncommon for a person to go skiing in the morning and biking in the afternoon. A building in this region should reflect this lifestyle and provide a variety of ways to access the outdoors on daily and annual cycles.”

“The High Desert Pavilion focuses on engagement. The building is designed to provide a myriad of ways to engage the outdoors and surrounding site. On a daily scale, the intimate, northeast patio is a perfect place to watch the sunrise, the large south-facing patio is designed for outdoor eating, and the private patio next to the master bedroom is meant for reading and star watching. On an annual scale, the overhang on the south patio is sized to flood the patio with sunlight in the winter months, creating a warm place to sit outside protected from prevailing westerly winds. In the summer the Void (interior courtyard) provides a cool place to escape the sun and remain outdoors.”

“Just as the low-slung roof lines are a function of passive solar management, the three parallel axis walls orient the house toward prominent views and define outdoor rooms, expanding the small footprint into the landscape. The steel clad spine-wall rigidly defines the public spaces from private and draws in the saturated colors and textures from the surrounding site.”

The post “High Desert Pavilion” Rammed Earth Home first appeared on Dornob.