A design study for a new Steel House

A study for a modern steel house - a new prefab entry.

This is a facade study for a house design that I am currently engaged in. It is a large four bedroom house with two master bedrooms that I am working on as a design consultant to Northern Steel, a international metal building manufacturer. The prototype will be built this winter and could be in production immediately afterwards. The house will be built using their EcoSteel system. They have encouraged me to post more information about the system so I have revised this blog entry.

Northern Steel has taken the initiative to adapt metal building conventions to residential design. Their "EcoSteel" system as it is called leverages standard metal building construction for use in the relatively light residential construction setting. This allows them to extend the efficiency that is practiced in this kind of commercial construction. In their words:

Northern Steel has recently launched their new patent pending EcoSteel Building System, which utilizes pre-engineered commercial materials in the design.

The new EcoSteel System is best used in contemporary or "loft style" projects where there is no need to cover up the steel structure.

The benefits over traditional lumber construction are compelling. Cutting down trees to build homes is an outdated and unsustainable method of building. Not only is the construction time reduced with an all steel residence, you eliminate termites and exterior maintenance. Toxic Mold and Home Fires are virtually eliminated. This all adds up to a more balanced environment with a higher interior air quality.



I am collaborating with Northern to develop modern designs utilizing the EcoSteel system as we all agree that it is a natural for the given construction aesthetic of the system.

We don't have all the details yet as we are still working through this. Browse through the rest of the site and I think you will get a feeling for their business. You can see their traditional cottage products at their site http://www.ecocottages.com I think this is a unique entry into this modern prefab movement. They already prefabricate and erect metal buildings nationwide so there is no warm-up period. Everything is in place and it should scale up immediately as demand warrants. I am interested in your feedback however and I can direct interested parties to the manufacturer.

Technorati Tags: ecosteel, 6040 House, modern house, house plans, Porch House

thoughts about Julia Child's kitchen

What does Julia Child's kitchen have to do with this re-modern movement?

I was in DC last week, visiting the Smithsonian, and I really enjoyed seeing Julia Child's kitchen. It had to be a big kitchen for its time, although it is sort of dwarfed by the average mcmansion kitchen of today. But it really struck me as to how it was such a great kitchen - such a good work space and such a good living space at the same time. Unlike the open plan kitchen living spaces that we think of being modern this one had a large space with a very long table, 3 separate pantries, one for food, one for baking, and one for dishware (a butler's pantry) and was separated from the other living spaces in the house. The work triangle - the frig, sink, and stove were at opposite ends of the kitchen - not the tidy work triangle kitchen planners often strive for. The stove was not in the prominent center place but in a niche at the far side. Cabinets were haphazard, some base cabinets were without doors for direct access to pots, there were few wall cabinets, a lot of peg board for hanging all the pots and tools - it looked like my dad's workshop! Countertops were either butcher block or stainless, and the floor was Armstrong congolium tile - a good solid vinyl flooring, but not the "classy" stuff people seek today. It was very casual and comfortable, but the antithesis of the year 2000 kitchen. I suppose people today will not be happy with such a functionally motivated, un-designer kitchen, but for somebody truly into food and cooking it could not be better designed.

But the big impact on me was the whole Julia Child story - when she started people in the US really had no idea how french cooking was done, and the imagination and creativity that could be applied to food. And I look at todays world and how many restaurants there are, and how much focus there is on food and cooking, and how much more savvy about food people are. I don't know how much credit goes to her, I'm sure other people contributed to this change, but what a transformation of popular culture it represents. It seems if that was possible with food and cooking, then we certainly must be able to do the same with the way america thinks about houses? no?

Technorati Tags: modern design, modern house

blogs are back up and running!

After a few weeks of downtime the LiveModern blog tools are back online!

We have been away from the blog for a few weeks so we have a number of loose ends to catch up on. We left off with the completion of the 0367 Porch House Construction Prints. It was completed in mid August and the status was set on our site to "Prints Available Now". The development of the 0380 Cube House will follow soon, and you will be able to track it here as before.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, Porch House

Porch House Construction Prints detail view

3D details help make confusing connections simple and clear.

The Porch House Construction Prints will have a special structural sheet to document the ground floor timber frame. The frame is not complicated, but could be intimidating for a builder who has never done something like this before. These detail views are intended to clarify what might otherwise be confusing (and cause for a builder to inflate his price). The 0357 Steel Case House is the only other design that has required this so far.



This is a view of the same connection shown in my previous entry. A view like this can take the fear factor out of a detail.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, Porch House

Porch House Construction Prints details

Working my way through some details.

When I detail for a stock plan one of my big priorities is making things straight forward to put together, using readily available products, and if something needs to me made special then making it a simple fabrication. So this week I have been working with a corner of the Porch House where everything comes together. At any corner of the house the porch perimeter beams sit on the foundation piers, the post comes down on top of them, and diagonal braces come in from two directions. Under other circumstances a steel connector would be designed which resolved all the connections, but with a stock plan destined to be built with varying budgets I have to try to detail to the lowest common denominator while still making a handsome connection.



What's going on here. The perimeter beams are anchored down to the pier using conventional anchor bolts. The beam is connecting to the post with an inverted post cap connector from Simpson - the same kind is being used up top of the post as well. This connector has two vertical legs on each side of the post bolted thru with two 3/4" bolts. We are going to overlay that plate with an angle trimmed to serve as an anchor for the cleavis of our diagonal brace. This allows us to used the same bolts to attach this additional hardware. To bring the other diagonal brace in at the corner we have to have another angle offset in height so the bolts can cross without interference. The diagonal ties must be offset to the inside of the posts to allow them to pass the horizontal frames. A similar detail will resolve all the connections at the top of the post, and hopefully it will all look easy, and be easy to put together.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, Porch House

Porch House Construction Prints sections

This round of drawing development for the sections is done.

The section drawings do not carry as much notation as my other sheets. They still need reference marks which I will complete in my last round of notations. I am going to move on to the detailed wall sections now. These will take some time as there is a lot to show in this stage. I have some other details I will need to develop after those but I can see light at the end of the tunnel.



Its been an amazing week. I get worn down with this pace so the enthusiasm that reaches me keeps me fresh and motivated. At the beginning of this week late in the day I was looking on the web for some ariel photos for a project site when there was knock at the office door. Once in a blue moon the ups guy has a bad day and can come really late so I did not think much of it being 5:30. I open the door and there is a fellow there looking with much interest up and down the outdoor stairway. He introduces himself as one of the people whom I have corresponded with about the house plans, his wife actually. The are from Philadelphia and were driving by my town and said they just had to stop to take a look at our office and he figured he would just knock. Knock me out is what he did! He was very full of enthusiasm for the stock plan effort and I have to admit that it all just caught me completely off guard. I made sure I had them on the mail list and by the time my head cleared it was time for them to run. I don't meet you all out there in person often enough and experiencing the emotion of another person first hand is a charge - I mean here was somebody else right here in flesh and bone who gets it, just like me. And so later this week I get an email inquiry from somebody very interested in the 0380 Cube House and I reply, answer their questions as best I can, and we go back and forth a couple of times with emails. They are looking for a site and so I give them the down and dirty concern list for this design - height considerations as it is tall at 3 stories. I like to tell it like it is, not scare any one off but I want to enable people with good facts of what they may confront even though it can discourage some. Well they come back to me with obvious determination, and backed up with an order for Design Prints. Man - if they are willing to go out and really push for the kind of house they want, then I'm going to push like hell on my end too. The end of the week is coming up now, I get a call from Lauren, my wonderful ad rep from Dwell for my ads in the Marketplace section. She was talking to Bill, the guy who lays out the ad pages at Dwell - takes all my materials for the ad, corresponds with proofs, etc etc. Turns out the guy with the ad next to mine decided to pull out at the last minute, the issue was going to press in a matter of hours and Bill suggested to Lauren that they stretch my ad out to fill the vacant space, Lauren was calling to give me the good news. Hot diggity dog! I got a double-wide for the month. Thanks guys!

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, Porch House

Porch House Construction Prints elevations

This round of elevation drawing notations are done.

The drawing is not completely done as there are a good number of reference marks that still need to go down, but the bulk of the work is done on this sheet. Here is a greatly reduced shrinky-dink view of the whole sheet. I often wonder, people must want to see what the heck these drawings look like, but when you are selling House Plans you really can't just post them out there. But there is no harm in these reductions and gives you an idea of what the documents look like. The perimeter of the drawing area is indexed, much like a road map, to aid in locating referenced drawings.



The section drawing is next. When that is complete I will develop the detailed wall sections for the house which were blocked out earlier. I am getting more and more excited about completing this project every day. This has been one of my favorites and it will be nice to finally see it "have wings". Some strong inquiries on the 0380 Cube House today look like they will drive that one to completion as well.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, Porch House