#10 Crooked House, FOVEA Architects - by Blenda Araujo

Located in the countryside of Switzerland, the Crooked House was designed by Fovea Architects. The residence stands out with its sharply angled façade. Facing south, the angled upper volume was developed as a way to balance the need for privacy and light. 

Upon the rectangular first floor, the second level is inclined at a 40 degree angle, adding a cozier feeling to the outdoor patio below. 

Filled with large windows this façade fills the interior with light and avoids facing other villas being built in the near future. The home was prefabricated and is clad in painted pine planks that allow it to blend in with the rural architecture of the area. The home’s form also borrows the image and function of the eaves found in local farmhouses.

#9 “Minha Casa, Minha Vida”: Brazil’s Social Housing - by Blenda Araujo

Since 2009, the Brazilian government has worked with the social housing program called “Minha Casa, Minha Vida” (“My House, My Life”) which will achieve by the end of this year a number of 3.4 million housing units. The program seems a great initiative if we look how bad the low-income housing in Brazil is. But, it has some failures such as location, comfort and infrastructure.

Location + Infrastructure:
 The settlements are established where land is cheap, which means far…far…far away from downtown, people’s jobs, schools and health care. But, if you going to build a complex full of houses like this seems pretty obvious that you need basic infrastructure, right?! Well, the government don't care, they don't even try. The project is all about houses (and bad houses), there is no integration with existing urban settings. In some places even the public transportation doesn't work. All those issues sometimes makes them prone to becoming ghettos.

"Cidade de Deus" (City of God) is an example of social housing that became into a ghetto because lack of infrastructure. This is not a "Minha Casa, Minha Vida" project but is very similar.

"Cidade de Deus" (City of God) in 1960.

"Cidade de Deus" (City of God) nowadays.

Comfort:
The typology of the houses are the same wherever you go in Brazil. Tiny little houses with no basic insolation studies and all look the same. The repetitive pattern just follow the rules of the current building economy, I presume. 

"Minha Casa, Minha Vida", north of Brazil.

"Minha Casa, Minha Vida", southeast of Brazil.

However, besides all those failures that I mentioned, for me the biggest mistake is how people end up on those places. They are allocated based on sweepstakes, for example, if you are a resident of any risk area and the government decides that you have move to a new community, you probably will not know about any of your neighbors, might be away from your relatives and you will probably move to a house unfinished (floors missing or roof unfinished, no electricity, etc). Which is one of the factors that people don't stay at the new places and eventually go back to the old houses.Thus, it is clear that the brazilian government should consider not only its own interests but also the interests of the population as only then the investment in housing will be successful.

(2) Casa Terracotta - Trevor Morse

Located in Villa De Leyva, a small village tucked away in a Mountain Range in Columbia, Casa Terracotta is the worlds largest pottery sculpture that also is used as a living space. The structure was completed in 2012 with a final square foot total of 5,400. The sculpture is known for using only clay that was found on site in order to create not only the main structure but the furniture inside as well as the decorations, which were all done by hand. It's creator and architect Octavio Mendoza is known as an artist and environmental activist.

10 - The Prairie House - Hillary Kidd

     

     The Prairie House is located in Norman, Oklahoma and was designed by Herb Greene in 1961. The home was created as a sculpture on the Oklahoma prairie and is based on a loosely fish-shaped plan in which the mouth and tail open to become windows. The home has been nicknamed the Prairie Chicken House, though it is more commonly referred to as the Buffalo House. Greene tried to evoke natural forms using delicate timber shingles and low-cost building materials.

   

      Greene envisioned the land, not as a surface to build on, but as a landscape to build within. Cedar boards and shakes are collaged over a wood-sheathed frame surfaced with mineral-coated roll roofing, giving the house complex rhythms, fractures and metaphors of scales and feathers. Inside, the shingles continue to create a complex, layered and feathered interior.

 “My House contains references ranging from primordial creature to futurist object and represents my interest in creating metaphors of age and the passage of time ... Human beings, with our unique ability to remember and anticipate, need to develop an architecture [which] gives direction to an imaginative mingling of past, present and future.” - Greene

 

3. Casa das Canoas (Canoas House), Oscar Niemeyer - By Camila Figueiredo

The “Casa das Canoas” was a project designed by the most famous architect in Brazil, Oscar Niemeyer (1907-1912), winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize on 1988. The project was made for his third home, it was completed in 1953. It’s located inside the Tijuca Forest, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The house was designed on a sloping lot. The idea was accompanying the climbing road in one of the sides, placing the gate for automobiles at the highest point. This solution was taken to avoid interference from cars to anyone in this house. Another interesting point resulted from that solution is the vision of the house, forest and swimming-pool provided by downward slope from the gate. The house is completely integrated into the nature.

The house has a play of transparencies and opacities to design a dynamic space. The straight line accentuate the contrast with the first element that dominates the look: a sinuous and free flat roof which generously exceeds the occupancy limits of the building. Between the house and swimming-pool there is a rock that articulates and connects the internal space to the external.The implantation was done with cutting only three plateaus: one for the small upper parking lot and two others for the floors of the house. The continuous floor foreground accentuates the flow of shared spaces like the living rooms, dining room, bathroom, kitchen and the pool area.

Downstairs is an intimate part of the house, with 3 bedrooms and a living room.

The “Casa das Canoas” is an example of dynamism and articulation, which were characteristics of Niemeyer.

4 - Seifert House - Barbara Franco

The Seifert House was built in 2005, in Volkersdorf, Austria, by BAU/KUTUR, Michael Shamiyeh. What I like about this house is the fact that it represents a life-changing to Mrs. Seifert. She is a sixty-three years old curator of an art gallery, who lost her previous home in a fire. Mrs. Seifert wanted a house that could connect her daily life with nature, allowing her to experience the changing seasons throughout the year. In this project the architect’s principal challenge was to balance the privacy and openness of the glass box designed. Inspired by the Modern Movement, Mrs. Seifert and the architect compared the flexible arrangement of the Schroder House with the work of Mies Van der Rohe in the Farnsworth House. The house was built with no cooling or heating system with a low budget of 1.400 €/m2, made of concrete and glass, within a construction period of less than seven months.
The Seifert House is an example of centralized plan, even though there is no singular focus, the plan embodies a sense of complete self-centeredness. The concrete cores contain all of the necessary cellular spaces, composed by the entrance, a wardrobe, a living area, home cinema, kitchen, library, bathroom, sleeping area and parking. Around the static solids, a more dynamic space is created with the glazed walls. The entrance is defined by the concrete wall that also conceal the garden from view until visitors have entered the house.

5 Oklahoma Case Study Home- Seth Gebhart

Oklahoma Case Study House
Architect: Brian Fitzsimmons

This single family home, located on the Northwest side of Downtown Oklahoma City is a home inspired from the owners taste for mid-century California case-study houses. This home is designed to an urban response to an elevated site. It appears that the designer has tried to create a sense of privacy for the owner while providing an open view of downtown Oklahoma City to the South. The house features an open second floor that includes the family room, kitchen, and dinning room. In addition the master bedroom is also on the second floor. Each room has a great panoramic view of the city skyline in the distance. In addition the master bedroom on the second level has an outdoor covered patio. This patio is located on the east side of the building as you can see the covering just to the right of the hanging cantilever in the foreground.