The concept house

[meresjeva]

(a letter to the future)

So, Marky… You offered me to describe - even roughly - the house where I would want to live the rest of my life in Finland.

Comments

dream house

[anonymous]

T
All sounds very good. Indeed Organic architecture can mean lots of things to lots of people and not always meaning it looks like an onion...even onions can be not organic and machine produced. The earliest building I know called organic, and one of my heros, was a cow shed by Hugo Häring in 1922 - very antifacist building and architect:)The oval shape was coming from how cows naturally gather at feeding in a circle, the curved side bits were to stop small calves getting cornered in a square pen...of course it was still a cow shed and Korovka would see total liberation as the way forward:)

After that Scharoun and some current German architects see organic as being free of the right angle and the box.

Logs...its always nice to get back to the essence of the material...I was thinking constructivist because of those paintings with angles and random floating lines a bit like logs floating down a river. Logs kinda need be used in straight lines but maybe they could be floating angles so the rooms are a little fan shaped and not square all the time (square sometimes very useful). The square edges would have the jog joint anyway? Aalto always used a straight line in composition so as to better appreciate the curve against it - it was a bit like the horizon of the land or the water...'grounds' the building which then takes off with a curve. Miro is also a bit like this? some straight lines to joint the composition?

You also like the steep pitched roof so did a sketch of a room with one straight wall and one angled wall like a wig-wam tent shape...maybe it could have a glass top to see stars and let sunlight in like a scoop?

The Gaudi stair looks good and seems you like the pechka as big sculpture for living in...best way to do that would be to make real models 1.5 scale in plaster of paris to get all the ideas worked out?

I'd forgotten about the books and fire idea...got to have that somewhere but thats probably not a fire in the pechka part then but another small one.

I'm thinking the pechka really should have a rooflight to appreciate all the curves and shapes...they were always set in a dark corner but like Gaudi a modern pechka might have a bit of light on it...maybe it is like one of those curved Spainish/Mexican village stairs where it brings you up to a small roof window and door to get to the terrace? Stair up around the back of the pechka? only a narrow small one...

oh your sketch very good...did you do it in 'paint' to get it scanned?

Ok I'm trying to load some images but not sure how yet
M

Re: dream house

[meresjeva]

Marky,

careful with the rooflights! Who do you think will clean them, and how often? Remember those lights in St John restaurant - they were always dirty!

Hugo Häring - you mean Gut Garkau? I'm not impressed, sorry:) It is a lovely cowshed indeed (very much like Aalto university buildings in Jyväskylä ;)) but the windows are too narrow and generally it reminds me of а grain elevator.

The drawing I've drawn in Paint with my mouse. It is much worse than what I used to do as a child, though - I used to produce much less details, lines were cleaner, and the trees certainly did not look like humans.

You can post the sketches from Flickr, or send me these, I'll sort them out.

(funny how we both think of cows at the same time - I looked at this and got very depressed. Horrible fairy-tale.

Re: dream house

[anonymous]

OK your right about rooflights - but maybe some small ones that can be reached from the inside and from the roof terrace...indeed they might be small, or better 'clerestorey' like a church where they are vertical but facing south or evening sun and still scooping. Scooping light down into the north or back rooms can be nice thing especially in the evening sun.

I know you won't like the look of Gut Garkau...more historical note that this was very influencial in postwar German organic some of which you might like ok...kindof like Tapoli a lot.

Re: dream house

[prussak]

Please let me remind you that Hugo Haering's architecture is not organic in the term of biomorphic, or curvilinear, or else - it's "organHAFT", as the Germans put is, which is a reflection of principles, that lay as a foundation of some matter, and not of an outer form. In fact, it's true functionalism!
Thus, the Garkau cowshed is not designed to have a pleasing facade: it is made - and was - a perfect accomodation for some 15 cows and a bull. The windows were just enough for the sun to get in, and there were special ventilation slits to get the damp out.
Unfortunatly, Haering is almost impossible to translate. I would advise to to get some Peter Blundell Jones books on him.