Revisit –– new photos of North Carolina Tray House

The Tray House built in North Carolina recently came on the market, and so many recent photos of the house were posted. I have re-posted several of them to the Flikr gallery of this house.

While the owners finished the house with a distinct craftsman feel, the dynamic character of the spaces still shine through. Make sure to click over to Flickr and look at the rest of the photos, especially if you are interested in this house you will enjoy seeing a lived in version of the house.

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Surprise! A new Plat House fully formed!

Most of the time when we send out House Plans to customers it is like sending a message out into the void, never to be heard from again. But every so often one of those houses bounces back, and appears one day, fully formed in the flesh, both surprising and delighting us! This week was one such time.

Roughly two years ago we posted that we were working on a Plat House 3 modification, and gave a preview of the modified house elevations showing the appearance of the attached garage. The Construction Prints were completed and delivered to the Owners a few weeks later, and we moved on to other deadlines and projects. Last week it occurred to me that I had not checked in with them in a long time and sent off an email to see if they had started building. What I got back was a series of photos of the nearly fully complete house - amazing!
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New Customer Build: Michigan XHouse2

I am super thrilled to be able to introduce a new customer project that we are going to track on the blog. There has been a drought of customer builds and I hope this one inspires some others to correspond about their builds. Ok, lets go over some of the interesting features of this build.

The first thing is that this build is a First Build of the 0956 XHouse2, or at least the first build of the house from the Stock Plan set created of this house design since it was first built in all steel as the 3030 House. I’m always excited about First Build projects because its great to see a design realized in real space and time!

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Wonderful photos of the Vermont Plat House

A treasure trove of beautiful photos of the Vermont Plat House have been posted to the Owners’ Real Estate Agent’s web site. Yes, the house is on the market, and our designs have been around now long enough that the first houses are beginning to change hands.

But the bright side of this is that it is wonderful to see the house so nicely furnished, so comfortably lived in, and fullfilling that dream of a modern life we can all identify with. Here are a couple of choice photos from the Gallery, but you will find many more on the realtor’s site. There is also a Virtual Reality walk through,  which is a series of 360 degree images that you can spin around to look at, each “hot linked” to adjacent view points. Its the closest you can come to a walk-thru without being there.

Drone view of the Vermont Plat House

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Stack Townhomes - live model

Continue reading "Stack Townhomes - live model"

Stacked Townhomes - The Site Plan

The Site Plan is the biggest problem with a typical rear garage stacked townhome.

Last time we looked in some detail at the typical configuration of a Stacked Townhome with rear access garages. I promised that next we would look at the site planning implications of this kind of living space arrangement, and that’s what we are going to do today.

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Stacked Townhomes - typical configuration with rear garages

The precedent we are going to look at now is one of the most common configurations for Stacked Townhomes today. This is a three story two dwelling unit townhome configured with a 3 bedroom unit stacked over a 2 bedroom unit, with rear facing attached garages built into the volume of the house. Internally the units are in the typical stacked configuration with each unit consisting of 1 story + 1/2 floor.



I resist calling this the most “popular” configuration because I am not convinced that popularity among developers equals popularity among home buyers. Buyers are traditionally stuck with what is offered, and in this case the popularity among developers is more the result of unit yield per acre than a preference for the configuration of dwelling units.
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0385 Tray House in the kitchen

Here is the casual relationship between the kitchen work area and the dining space of the Tray House. This can work for you if you like a large formal dining table and a kitchen table in the kitchen proper, or with a daily table in the dining area, and stools at the island in the kitchen for less formal meals. Continue reading "0385 Tray House in the kitchen"

1201 XHouse5 backyard

The back of the XHouse5 has a pair of doors into the living room, and right beside it a door to the mud room. Above is the master bedroom, and bath. Continue reading "1201 XHouse5 backyard"

0967 XHouse3 the whole place

From this spot in the kitchen you can take in the entire XHouse3. Well.., not all of it, but its a cool view! Continue reading "0967 XHouse3 the whole place"

0357 Steel Case House party is always best in the kitchen

The Steel Case House may have a great living room, but the kitchen and family room is where everybody hangs out during a party! Continue reading "0357 Steel Case House party is always best in the kitchen"

0965 XHouse2 overview

The XHouse2 has the same plan and footprint as our iconic steel 3030 house design, but made instead with easy to build stud construction. Continue reading "0965 XHouse2 overview"

0380 Cube House upstairs family room

Well here it is, I don't know why we've waited so long to look at the Cube House's upstairs studio space, perhaps the most significant outcome of its interesting 2+3 story organization. If you recall the living room of this house is very high, with a story an a half space for a loft like living area. Above the living room is this studio space which is also a story and a half tall, and when combined with the living room equals the three stories on the other side of the house. So what do you do with this space? A kick-ass family room? A dancing or painting studio? Photography? You name it - its yours. Continue reading "0380 Cube House upstairs family room"

0518 U House bedroom hallway

The bedroom hallway opposite the master bedroom wing in the U House has its own sliding door to the deck, all the better to create that wide open connection to the courtyard and the landscape beyond. Continue reading "0518 U House bedroom hallway"

0237 Pretender front facade

Well, this is it, the front of the Pretender. We've not been avoiding it, but we've spend all our time looking at the other parts of the house that are so obviously modern. But this is the business end of the house, where all the pretending goes on, for the sake of pacifying the neighbors that are less than open minded. So you can dress this up as a farm house, or put the big fat greek columns on it if thats what it takes. Just think of this side like a traditional blank slate. Do what you have to do to make it work and don't think twice about it. Its worth it to have your cool modern house thats hiding out back. Your welcome. Continue reading "0237 Pretender front facade"

1299 XHouse4 finally! all the way upstairs

If you've been following along with us we've been on a slow walk up the stairs to the attic floor of the XHouse4. And here we are - we've arrived! The attic floor is one large room, with wide dormers that admit a lot of light. There is a full bathroom, and an hvac closet, and storage closets under the sloped ceilings. This space can be split into two rooms if you wish, used as bedrooms, a great home office, a playroom for the kids, or anything else you can think of. So enjoy, its does not get much better than this. Continue reading "1299 XHouse4 finally! all the way upstairs"

0857 L House in the kitchen

Our last blog post for the L House showed a view down the circulation path that goes along the living spaces and ends at the kitchen. Today we are in the kitchen looking back into the living spaces, and we can see how the corner of the kitchen overlaps and is one with the circulation zone. A little overlapping of spaces happens because the kitchen extends out to the column line. This results in a kitchen that is in a discrete room, but still participates in the open plan living of the home. Continue reading "0857 L House in the kitchen"

Stacked Townhomes - a second Philadelphia precedent

To follow up on the last Stacked Townhome precedent study today we look at another infill project in the same neighborhood of Philadelphia - Hawthorne. This example is a more representative example of a stacked townhouse because unlike the first one which was a flat under a two story unit, this example consists of two units that are 1 story + 1/2 floor. This configuration is more consistent with the contemporary model of Stacked Townhomes.

If you go back to my first post on this design study you can see a sketch of this configuration. There is typically a ground floor entry, one door for each unit, with one unit on the ground floor and half the second floor; and the second unit on half the second floor and the entire third floor. In this case the setting is urban, and the ground floor unit has a small rear yard, and the upper unit only a small balcony. On this site the rest of the lot depth back to the alleyway is dedicated to a shared parking lot.

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0738 Palo Alto the whole thing

And we conclude our tour of the Palo Alto house with a wide view of the entire living - dining - kitchen space, the back yard and the entry court. Continue reading "0738 Palo Alto the whole thing"

0367 Porch House kitchen & table area

Now that we are upstairs in the Porch House we should finish looking around. From the living room here is the dining area and the galley kitchen beyond. The laundry in this compare weekender is right there - a stacked unit right next to the frig! Continue reading "0367 Porch House kitchen & table area"