Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Cabin


A Delightful Experience:

The Architects Cabin is designed to appeal to James Russell and his partner. Its main delightful features are:
  • Open living just like Russell uses in the Brookes st house. This style of living allows the cabin to have fresh air throughout.
  • The large window that faces the afternoon sun (and the other windows throughout the cabin) create wonderful shapes when the sun is at the right angle. Light is a very important factor in this cabin, as with the Brookes st house, the open living allows optimal light to pass through the house.
  • Bringing outside inside: The front room is both a dining and an outdoor room for relaxing or reflecting. This room is the most important room in the house and it has endless uses.


A Container of Human Activities:

The cabin has been designed to cater for a number of activities, The front room can be used for dining, entertaining, relaxing and working. The studio (triangular room) is created in a way that it is open so that it can be passed 'through'. The inhabitants dont walk from room to room as such, instead, they pass through thresholds.


An Environmental Filter:

As discussed, light is a very important factor in the cabins design. The windows are designed to capture the light and create shadows of different sizes and shapes and create various strengths of light throughout the cabin.

The Cabin is also very open, this allows it to stay cooler in the tropical climate of Mount Methodology. Breezes can enter through the main room and flow all of the way through the house without solid walls inhibiting it.

Water/rainfall: Because the cabin is situated at the bottom of a small hill, in a sheltered cove, drainage has been place at the foot of the hill to stop water from entering the cabin.

Cabin exterior view




Site Plan


Site plan of Counter lever cliffs showing from left: Bamboo wall house, Mooloomba house (middle bottom),My Cabin and The Brookes st House.

Floor Plan




Elevation and Section





Top: Front (western) Elevation
Middle: Section 1
Bottom: Section 2






Monday, March 22, 2010

Key Features carried to my design:


  • Bringing 'outside', 'inside': Creating space that isn't outside, nor is it inside space. James Russel does this in the Brookes street house by placing a small patch of lawn in the centre of the house. In my cabin I have taken his idea of open space and used it to create a main room facing the breeze. It is open on three sides allowing free flow of air through the house
  • The two large, timber clad openings in the front room are used to create the outdoor feel that James Russell had used so well in the Brookes st house.
  • The house has no completely solid walls. These partitions instead create completely open living to allow maximum air flow and less retractability


Diagrams

Quick site plan sketch


Basic Materials


First site plan
Bubble Diagram: spaces and adjacency


Early Planning Diagrams

Sunpath: The Cabin is situated on a western coast, The morning sun from the east heats the back wall and in the afternoon the sun shines onto the main open room at the front of the cabin