* Residential Architecture: Cedarvale Ravine House by Drew Mandel Architects

Residential Architecture: Cedarvale Ravine House by Drew Mandel Architects: “..This house in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by Drew Mandel Architects features pale grey stone walls and an overhanging top storey..Home to a family of four, the two-storey residence sits at the edge of Cedarvale Park, a steeply sloping ravine surrounded by woodland..Drew Mandel Architects used locally quarried stone blocks in three different sizes to create irregular courses on the building’s exterior. To contrast, zinc clads the cantilevered first floor and richly coloured walnut covers a selection of surfaces inside the house..”The restrained and limited material palette avoids unnecessary ornamentation in order to focus one’s attention on the site, natural light, and movement through modulated open spaces,” say the architects..The volume of the house is broken down into modules, which step back and forth on both floors to create two patios at ground floor level and a vegetable garden on the roof..The architects explain this as a “pushing and pulling” that mediates between the residential context at the front and the woodland area at the rear. “The sculptural expression solves programmatic requirements, maximises views, provides natural light, and enhances the promenade and transition from suburban streetscape to very primal forms of nature,” they add..A glazed single-storey block at the back contains the living room and offers a view back towards the park..The overhanging first floor cantilevers out beside it and hovers above an outdoor swimming pool. To support the weight of the cantilever, the architects added a single concrete wall and a series of concealed trusses..A double-height dining room is positioned at the centre of the house and splits the first floor into two wings. A mezzanine corridor runs between..Extensive glazing, natural light, nature views; privacy; interesting form and volumetry, interior volumes, materiality..

image + article: Dezeen

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* Residential Architecture: The Overhang House by DADA & Partners

Residential Architecture: The Overhang House by DADA & Partners: “..The brief required a house for a family of five on a 350 Sq. site, located in the suburbs of Delhi. The clients aspired for a contemporary, iconic house that housed not only a living unit but also work and entertainment zones on different levels. At the same time they wanted landscape ideas that could inter connect with all spaces both horizontally and vertically. The clients’ penchant was towards a slick modernist vocabulary that amalgamated the habitable spaces with the landscape. Working closely with the client a brief emerged which sought to carefully create a contemporary house, with a more fluid arrangement of spaces, rather than just a functional design..The first move was to introduce light and ventilation by opening up the south face of the house and punching a courtyard up to the roof level. This internal courtyard serves as a separator between the kitchen, living room and the parent’s room on the ground floor whilst ensuring visual connection from all living zones between all levels..The ground floor is essentially a transparent podium, which engages with the outdoor landscape. Glass plays along, around and above the solid elements while pivoted glass doors open up to outside. The interior and exterior spaces blend seamlessly into each other due to the use of frameless floor to ceiling glass and a continuity of materials from the inside to the outside..One of the key features of the house is the son’s duplex unit between the first and second floors. Natural light pervades every corner of the duplex and reacts to the red and grey color palette to create a stark interior. The elegant steel and wood stair cantilevers out precariously from the grey textured wall. The room on the lower floor serves as the lounge with an intimate timber decked terrace while the upper part is used as the bedroom that connects to the outdoor deck on the roof garden..The master bedroom and bathroom have been generously placed to the front of the first floor with ample views to the front landscaped garden. The 200 sq.ft master toilet positioned right over the entrance cantilevers out without any structural support hence the name ‘overhang’ house. Natural light floods the bath through full height glass windows placed strategically and keep it private at the same time..Connecting all levels is a staircase that steps inwards from the building edge creating a skylight at the top of first floor. The wall just below the skylight is clad with vertical wooden members while the rest is glass with horizontal metal louvers creating a lantern feel to the stair core. This volume subtly changes shape and depth, casting shadow by pulling in daylight and glows like a lantern during evenings..The architecture was required to respond climatically and aesthetically to its context and at the same time tried to be sustainable. The house incorporates passive design techniques to maximize its benefit from the southern sun during winters and ventilated cooling through the courtyard. The building captures all rainwater into harvesting pit, provides for all its hot water heating using rooftop solar thermal panel collectors. Architectural features such as timber louvers, huge overhangs not only add to the design vocabulary but assist in reducing heat gain into the building and hence making the structure more thermal efficient..”  Interesting form, details, interior volumes and materiality..

See our post on another home by DADA & Partners: Residential Architecture: F3 Farmhouse by DADA & Partners.

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image: © Ranjan Sharma; article: ”The Overhang House / DADA & Partners” 18 Dec 2012. ArchDaily. <http://www.archdaily.com/307660&gt;

* Residential Architecture: Retreat in the South-Indian Countryside by Mancini

Residential Architecture: Retreat in the South-Indian Countryside by Mancini: “..A 4000sqm compound has been turned into an interior world consisting of 3 houses, pool with pavilion, small forest, rock – tropical – and suspended gardens, sunken garden around a deep well, outdoor bathrooms, savanna and water-tank all of it assembled to provide views on the nearby holy mountain and yet creating privacy in its different indoor and outdoor spaces. Sloping roof-gardens provide natural connectivity from the living quarters on the first floors down to the common spaces on the ground-floor and the visitor discovers a new space or a new vista around every corner..The buildings draw on traditional construction technique combined with large roof-overhangs and  thus ensuring cool interiors in the very hot climate of the south Indian countryside. All architectural and interior elements are custom designed and manufactured by local craftsmen whereas the infrastructural elements rely on technology to ensure environmental sustainability..”  Multiple gardens, abundant natural light and views; extensive wood inside and out..

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image: © mancini enterprises; article: ”Retreat in the South-Indian Countryside / Mancini” 23 Aug 2012. ArchDaily.  <http://www.archdaily.com/263617&gt;

* Architecture: Frank Gehry designs Facebook HQ Expansion

Architecture: Frank Gehry designs Facebook HQ Expansion: “..Mark Zuckerberg, the 28-year-old co-founder of Facebook, has commissioned Frank Gehry to design a new campus headquarters on the outskirts of San Francisco Bay, California. Located across the highway from Facebook East, the company’s current headquarters, Facebook West will provide every luxury expected from a modern office space, from a flexible open floor plan, to arcade-filled lounge areas and a massive roof garden..The enormous, ten acre “room” breaks away from Gehry’s signature curves, and aims to provide a “system that’s not precious, that they [Facebook] can manipulate.” Work benches “line up in curving arcs like swarming fish”, organizing the 420,000 square foot facility into “neighborhoods” that softly flow into each other in an attempt to foster a collaborative, community-like environment..When Facebook employees need a break, they can retreat to outdoor-terraced cafes for some sushi and barbecue, play arcade games in the lounge with their co-workers, or escape up a “twisting wooden stair” to the lush roof garden..Construction is scheduled to begin in Spring 2013..For more information, check out Bloomberg’s exclusive coverage here..”

See some of our posts on other work by Frank Gehry:

• Architecture: The French Cinematheque by Frank Gehry
• Residential Architecture: Duplex by Frank Gehry for Make it Right
• Architecture: The Dancing House by Frank O. Gehry
• Residential Architecture: Video: Gehry Residence by Frank Gehry, 2012 AIA Twenty-five Year Award Recipient
• Residential Architecture: Gehry Residence by Frank Gehry
• Architecture: Opus Hong Kong by Frank Gehry

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image: Photo: Frank Gehry/Gehry Partners via Bloomberg; article: Rosenfield , Karissa . “Frank Gehry designs Facebook HQ Expansion” 25 Aug 2012. ArchDaily.<http://www.archdaily.com/266898&gt;