Fun stairs

I'd love to know why all stairs don't have a slide built next to them. This is great fun.

Here's the writeup from daddytypes.com:
Minimalist architect Alex Michaelis first made news when he bought a 4,000-sf vacant lot in London for £750,000. (Apparently, several centuries of concentrated building tends to deplete a city's supply of vacant lots.) Then, because local zoning boards restricted him from building anything higher than the 6-foot high wall around the property, [??!?] he designed the whole house to be underground. And incredibly eco-friendly, from the self-sustaining water and heating systems to the insulated walls, solar panels, and grass roof.

Oh, and it's beautiful, modern, and light-filled, thanks to carefully positioned windows, lightwells, skylights, reflections off of the swimming pool, and thanks to painting every built surface a blazing white...

Oh, and it's a kid's paradise, with a climbing wall, a built-in slide, play terraces, and wide open playspaces for his three (four?) kids. Oh, and the pool's optimized for kid-sized swimmers, not adults. It all adds up to make them the most popular hippie mole people in their school.

Leanarch render

Armando at Leanarch added our project to their site, including two of the image based lighting renders I created.
The description they wrote for our project is great:

"The design of this addition for a young and growing family was inspired by the whimsical interior of the existing residence. Although the aesthetic of the new addition is distinct, the proportion and massing are based on the layout of the original home. A centrally located art studio has retractable walls so that it can be opened to the interior courtyard. The master suite on the second floor has access to both a deck and balcony in order to survey the play areas within the yard. The playful contrast between new and old, and the rich palette of materials speak directly to the client's participation in the design process."

Light probe

This is what the light probe looks like. It's a photo I took of a chrome ball which has been distorted in a way that my rendering software (mental ray) understands. The final one I used was a combination of mutliple exposures and multiple angles to remove me and the camera tripod from the picture.
I'll use it for both the lighting and the environmental reflections (off of window, for example) in the 3D scene. 

Lighting

Armando from LeanArch asked if I could do some renders of our house plans for their website, so that's what I'm up to today. I'll be using a global illumination method called image based lighting to create the render. This works by first taking pictures at multiple exposures of a chrome ball to capture the true lighting and reflections of our back yard. These are then converted to a high dynamic range image (HDR) which will serve as a lighting cue for all the points on the surface of the 3D model. I'll post some work-in-progress shots as I go along. 

Turbo

Turbo

I can't imagine the lengths I'm going to have to go to to convince Erin that this should hang in our living room. It's awesome. Made to look just like the sprue that connects all of the parts of a plastic model car kit. From these guys: http://www.jellio.com/turbo/turbo.html#

Modern pattern

I really like this carpet pattern. That's all I have to say about it.

Cork

cork_colors
Originally uploaded by japunto.

Floor tiles made of cork are another strong contender. They're warm, quite, resilient and soft to the step. And, they now come stained in a variety of colors. We're thinking of using it in the bedrooms.

Marmoleum

I didn't realize Linoleum had left, but apparently it's now back. It's supposed to be relatively inexpensive when compared to hardwood, warm and soft when compared to polished concrete, and eco-friendly when compared to everything.
This one is a tile based system called Marmoleum.

3form

We met with James today (Erin's in Cincinnati, so she web-cammed in) and he said that the surveyors didn't come up with anything to be worried about. We do have to push the north side of the addition in by four inches, but that won't be a problem.

It's astounding how fast things are moving -- James is getting the structural engineer to look at the plans already. We're very excited about the designs and solutions Leanarch is providing -- they are proactive like you wouldn't believe which is just terrific. Neha found some beautiful pieces of furniture to place in the two hallway circulation nodes -- I'll post pics of them soon.

And then there is Varia. James brought this happy little box of material samples from a company called 3form that he wants us to consider for the sliding doors on the activity room. They laminate all sorts of designs, textures and materials between sheets of ecoresin (no, I don't know what "ecoresin" is either) and they look highly awesome. I'm crazy about the typographic one called courier.

Reading room

We love our peace and quiet. Or, at least, we imagine that we'd love it if we got to know it. Toward that goal, we proposed to James and Neha that the balcony overlooking the courtyard be redesigned as a small reading room.
This certainly won't further our other goal of lowering the cost of the addition. And I worry that enclosing that section will hurt the overall design, but we'll see what he thinks.

The Third Dimension

I've been working up a 3D model of the addition using Maya and rendering it with mental ray. Here is a view of the rear of the house as if you had displeased a knotty old witch, she had turned you into our garage, and you had opened your eyes and looked to your left a little bit. (What'd you say to her anyway?)

Construction begins

Not really. This is a photo of a house being built with giant styrofoam/particle board ice cream sandwiches. They're called Structurally Insulated Panels. They are built at a factory to measure and then assemled on site -- no need for traditional framing. We're looking into this because we've heard that they can save on construction time/cost, as well as being very energy efficient.

Everybody Wow

James and Neha (designer on the project) came over on Friday to show us the plans. In three words: Greatly Exceeded Expectations. We are in awe of the design they developed. I'm going to post cleaned up versions of the plans and elevations based on the CAD files soon, but here's a grainy, stitched-together scan for now.

I love the incorporation of the existing house with the modern style of the addition. Clean lines, lots of light, tons of added functionality.

Everything on the left-hand side of the image beyond the chimney is new. Two steps down from the (larger) living room take you to the activity room, laundry, storage closet, small bathroom, and the guest bedroom. The guest bedroom will have a rear wall made of sliding glass doors that pocket into the wall, allowing for indoor/outdoor living. Please sign up early to stay with us in these lovely accommodations.

I'll write more about the interior once I post images. I'm also busy building a 3D model of the plans so I can shoot some QTVR movies or a flythrough to put online.

I recall James once saying that "this is the fun part" of doing a house addition, and I couldn't agree more. I'm sure the heady excitement we feel now will be neatly counterbalanced by the realities of construction. And paying for it. But for now our only job is to request small design adjustments here and there and start researching materials, finishes, hardware and colors. Yay us!