Lake House Design

[cdohert13]

Hey everyone,

I've been wanted to design my own lake/beach house for a while now, just for the fun of it. I designed a made up plot of land right along the water, so I would have some basis for the house to be developed on, and am going to start designing when I get a chance. I just wanted to see how people thought about a possible concept for the house.

I was thinking of having the house represent driftwood, as if it floated up onto the land from the lake. It would either consist of one piece with a branch or two jutting out (the main piece being the living space, and the second branch, or another piece jutting out of the first being the sleeping quarters wing). Also, possibly having another branch that "floated up onto shore" being the garage.

As far as incorporating this conceptual idea into the design of the house, I was thinking of obviously using a variety of wood types, but I figured I would get to that later. I just wanted to see how people thought of the concept, and if anyone had any suggestions as to how to make the house have its own distinct language as a piece of driftwood.

Comments and constructive criticism would be great!

Thanks!

Chris

[SDR]

I find the concept capable of inspiring a solution. But of course the devil is in the detail: Do you picture a literal interpretation of the "brief," or would a certain amount of abstraction (at least) be in order ?

In your mind, is "driftwood" composed of natural forms, or milled ones ?


SDR

[cdohert13]

Definitely along the more abstracted side. The idea of driftwood, and its characteristics seem like there's plenty to base other smaller design elements off of. Clearly driftwood isnt rectangular, as a normal modern house's shape usually is. But I was thinking of incorporating gentle curves at various points to represent the smooth surface of wood the water created while it was floating around. Also, the driftwood has holes, and sometimes could even be hollow and warped. I have some ideas about designing the windows/openings and other things around that basis. I feel like I could extract enough details from driftwood itself, abstract them, and apply them to the project.

Anyone else have any comments or ideas about some other qualities of driftwood I could use to incorporate them into my design?

[lekizz]

In my experience driftwood often gets washed up the beach to the highest flood/tide point and forms a contour ribbon that follows the line of the shore.

Maybe you could create a linear house that snakes, or changes direction at several points to relate to the contour of the shoreline. You could then apply whatever driftwood-esque finish to your house that you desire!

Are we helping you complete a student project here??

[cdohert13]

Thanks for the input! I like the idea that the driftwood forms a "ribbon" or shoreline at the point of highest tide. That could get quite interesting when forming the envelope of the house. Then again, it depends on the level of abstraction I want to go to, because a ribbon can be curved and irregular, twisting and turning.

And yes, you are helping a student project. But, this is a project I am doing on my own outside of my studio courses. It's tough to complete one's own design project with little to no outside input/critique that allows one to continually develop his or her idea, so I figured this forum would give me some outside opinions.

Anyone else feel free to comment as well.

[kanneii86]

[djswan]

Cool! I've seen historical precendence for it. Timberframers scouring the beach, and building a house out of what they find. Built it in a couple of days or so, if my memory serves. Fine crafted it was and published.

Sounds like a safe bet, with 40,000 years or so of other fine examples.

[SDR]

Googling "driftwood house" and looking at "images" gives the predictable results -- but interesting nevertheless. And there are no houses of the kind we're imagining, here. . .

Good responses, so far !


SDR