Looking for some down time with some chill and mod homes? Look no further than the Ultimate House website. In case you haven’t heard of this show; Building the Ultimate House is a newer television series produced by i2i television for Discovery RealTime.
The show looks at, “Looks at how modern homes are being designed and built to meet the needs of rapidly changing contemporary lifestyles.”
You can watch videos at the site about….

Lighthouse, the first net zero carbon house in the UK.

The amazing Emilio Ambasz designed CASA de RETIRO ESPIRITUAL
And more…
Many homes to see – all are …read more

1. They build homes that glow.

2. They have a thing for orange. I happen to like orange – orange old school tupperware, burnt orange dresses, orange skies at night, orange roses, and more. It’s not like they build ONLY orange structures, I just get this orange feeling when I’m browsing their work. I’m betting you – they have a thing for orange.

Ok, one, I swear that I’ve posted about the Zero Energy Idea House here before. I honestly feel like my brain is going out on me, because now I can’t find that post. How obnoxious.
In any case, I recently received some update images from the project, so if I posted this house before or not is a moot point. I’ll just bring you up to date now. Up until now, all I’ve seen of this house are some renderings. Now however, this house is going up, and it seems to be going well.

Installation of the SIPs roof panels

Basics about the …read more

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything by Arkin Tilt Architects – over a year maybe. I really like their work though, especially their commercial structures; a rare thing for me to say (I’m more a residential kind of girl), but they always add a little pop of unique to their office and other commercial structure work.
This is not a commercial structure below though, it’s a really nice sustainable house, or more a compound I should say.

The Dar Residence has so many amazing features:

The compound is split into 2 shifted bars, a studio building and main living space.
The home …read more

[image via Highland Craftsmen]
I recently got the book, Bark House Style: Sustainable Designs from Nature from the library, and it got me thinking a lot about bark in design. I used to think of bark design as more just a rustic beach house look, but this book was cool; it shows a lot of different ways in which bark can be used for home design; from rustic to contemporary. I also didn’t know how sustainable bark could be. Of course there are ways it might be unsustainable, but if you work with a decent company, you could have a home …read more

How’s that for a title!
It’s been a while since we had some yummy structural link love. Since my bookmarks are way too full, now seems like a good time to drop some…

house of the week: 003 | Terrace House via Architechnophilia – this image above is the part of the house that’s not actually there, or so the post states. What’s that mean? Why not go find out? It’s worth the click.

I’ve had this saved for almost a month and it’s time to let go. This delicious little prefab hails from Jetson Green, but I actually first saw it at …read more

So, since I’m such an old school resident of Portland, I’m a little cranky with myself being that I’ve never noticed this project you see above, at Communitecture’s site. Seriously now, there’s just no good excuse.
This beautiful and quirky home’s plans utilizes trapezoids over rectangles and is sustainable to boot. The house, located in Orenco, OR, has locally-harvested oak structural columns plus salvaged materials from nearby barns.
Communitecture is a local (to me) architectural company who specializes in sustainable design that’s beautiful and bright. I’ve seen some of their commercial and multi-housing structures and they’re always very cool – very pdx. …read more

The Hatfield Residence is a sustainable home by JCL Architecture. Not only is this a cool house, but the site is very nice as well. Not so hard to use (as many architect sites can be). It’s a user friendly site with great walk through videos of JCL work.
This particular house overlooks a Pinewood reservoir in the foothills west of Loveland Colorado. I’m not sure how big it is, but I assume it’s using what it needs vs. excess as the JCL site notes, “The home takes shape as a space-efficient, energy-efficient and cost-efficient edifice. The linear design maximizes possible …read more

Bloxes are the ultimate large scale, eco-friendly building blocks. Good if you need to partition spaces on a low budget. Good if you’d like to get all artistic. Good if you need instant furniture.
Especially good under the Christmas tree!
Good for wall building:

Good for driving (ha sort of):

Good for standing on:

I saw this at the now [sadly] defunct blog, Mad Architect. I’m not so sure where I stand on this conceptual home. It’s not very me, but it’s very offbeat. For one thing, it looks shootable – as in point and shoot and zap your enemies.

The Reboot House has got some other cool points too. Like wind turbines, solar cell paint, rainwater use, and remote controls.
Get the full scoop and see more images.
[image via Mad Architect]