Exploding House in Bodrum, Turkey By GAD

Bodrum is a Mediterranean port-trade settlement in the Southwest of Turkey. The area boasts a rich history of over three thousand years, including Hellenistic times. The venerated scientist Heredot was born there and sculptures by artists including Leochares, Bryaxis, and Timotheos were exhibited there and can now be found in museum collections around the world. The outdated codes restrict new forms of architecture being introduced to the landscape.



To overcome this and create a more flexible building type, GAD created a house made from three separate buildings – a metaphor for a single building that has been “exploded” into many parts.




Operated electronically, the windows have the capacity to slide open flush to the ground, allowing for sea breezes to flood the interior.



This innermost space is the focal point of the house and is connected to the three houses by a series of concrete ramps that reconcile the building with the landscape. An additional slope that can be used as a sun deck and for light recreational activities descends to the contiguous swimming pool located on land set at a slightly lower grade from the house.



From here the ramp leads down the hillside to an additional self-contained apartment building that is set within the land and hidden from the house above.



Each individual unit, which complies with the regulatory size of 75 square meters, is built next to one another with a narrow space in between and is linked by a glass atrium. Conceived as a single house, each building has a separate function: a master bedroom and bathroom; a kitchen and dining room; and a guesthouse with an adjacent study room.



The central glass vestibule acts as the entrance to the building as well as the main living area with 180° vistas of the stunning landscape and bay made possible by floor to ceiling windows.






The open-plan of the main house ensures that it is light and airy, a must in the summer. As a secondary precaution, the roof of the building is covered with pools that collect rainwater.


above: the water cascades from the roof of one of the buildings to the other and is then circulated back round, creating a natural cooling system for a hot climate.



The “Exploded House” reinterprets traditional dwellings in the area, yet its angular structure that fits into the clefts in the hillside, remains in keeping with the natural environment and when seen from above the pools mirror the surrounding landscape and the endless vista of the bay and help mask the presence of the building on the hill.

Architects: Gokhan Avcioglu / GAD
Location: Bodrum, Turkey
Interior Design: Hakan Ezer
Client: Vedat Semiz, Sureyya Semiz
Site Area: 5,000 sqm
Project Area: 600 sqm
Project Year: 2003
Photographs: Ali Bekman, Ozlem Avcioglu

A Modern Bamboo Solar-Powered Studio by Lamboo

The Illinois-based Lamboo is a technology company that specializes in the manufacturing of engineered structural bamboo for architectural applications all over the world. Their research and product development specializes in bamboo panels and veneers, window and door components and other structural elements.



Their Lamboo Studio Project integrates many of their proprietary designs, such as the doors, windows, cabinets, joists, beams and even furniture.



The custom S-shaped roof on which the solar panels are placed provides heat in the winter and shade in the summer.



The Lamboo Studio Project brings functionality, sustainability, and performance together to result in a building with optimal physical and mechanical properties.



LAMBOO® STRUCTURE™ (Laminated Structural Bamboo) curved beams are used for the roof structure and Lamboo beams implemented for the floor/deck joists. LAMBOO® DESIGN™ products were incorporated for interior paneling and custom furniture designs. LAMBOO® VUE™ component material was used for the windows and doors.



The design of this studio space and its custom “S” shaped roof allows for it to consume the most sunlight in the winter months and the least in the summer months. This feature helps to achieve the most possible sunlight into the living space during the winter solstice to naturally heat the space while still achieving full sun activity on all solar panels.



During the summer solstice the “S” shaped roof overhang does not allow for sun to shine into the studio, yet stops the sunlight at the deck. This helps save on cooling energy and will result in maintaining much cooler conditions naturally through the summer months and still resulting in 100% solar panel activity.

A look inside the house:




The house at night:


Designed by Luke D. Schuette, images and info courtesy of Lamboo.


Studio Features:
* 304 sq.ft. interior space
* 308 sq. ft. deck
* LAMBOO® STRUCTURE™ Beams
* LAMBOO® STRUCTURE™ Joists
* Aluminum Clad Roof
* Cork Flooring
* Composting Toilet
* LAMBOO® VUE™ Doors
* LAMBOO® VUE™ Windows
* LAMBOO® DESIGN™ Cabinets
* LAMBOO® DESIGN™ Furniture
* Uni-Solar PV Panels

Lamboo Inc. utilizing the most rapidly renewable, high yield fiber resource on the planet, is introducing an alternative high performance building product. Through species and adhesive selection, and proprietary lamination processes, Lamboo technology is leading the structural engineered bamboo industry.

The Santa Elena House by Antonio Sofan

Located in Santa Elena of Antioquia, Colombia, this single family residence by architect Antonio Sofan is a 1000 sf vacation home built with green and local materials.



The unusual home is accessed through the wood deck that is open to the landscape:





The facade follows a rhythm dictated by the different functions inside, providing different variations of the landscape. Two bedrooms, one on each end, each with its own bathroom, the meditation room and the kitchen all face the wonderful scenery.







The Santa Elana home was completed in 2009, sits on a 5,000 square meter lot and cost approximately $200k USD.

about the architect:

Antonio Sofán got his architectural degree from Javeriana University in Bogota Colombia in 1989. A year later he moved to New York where he completed his graduate studies at Pratt Institute. In 1993 he returned to Colombia to design his first important commission, the headquarters for a local newspaper “el Meridiano” located in the city of Monteria. At his own practice studio in Bogota he designed Colegiatura Colombiana, a university campus located in the city of Medellin, and several other important residential projects including some single family homes and the interiors of high end apartments. His determination to understand architectural context and its relation to the end user has brought him to explore new aesthetic options much more engaged to sustainability and the environment.

In 2001 he designed Clinica Monteria which up until now has been his most important project. Through the design of this clinic he experimented with color and human anatomy. So the relationship between interior and exterior are analogous to the one between the body and soul. In 2001 he is back in the United States to join several firms like Kling, Peter Marino, Daroff Design and WRT Design in Philadelphia. Today, he is a Registered Architect in the States of New York and Pennsylvania and LEED accredited Professional

photos by carlos tobon
special thanks to Muuuz and Architizer for info and photos.

Sustainable & Spectacular Home In The Hills. The Sunset Plaza Residence.

The Sunset Plaza Residence by David Thompson and Kevin Southerland of Los Angeles-based architecture, development and sustainability design firm Assembledge+, is high up on my list of dream homes.




With lots of light, an open floor plan, large mitered windows, indoor/outdoor living area, covered attached garage, an infinity pool and 180˚ views of Los Angeles, it pretty much fills my check list for the perfect abode. The house was also one of the homes on last year's CA Boom Show LA architecture tour.




Located above the Sunset Strip in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, the design for this 5,000 sq ft house opens up to the surrounding landscape allowing the project to utilize all of the relatively flat site, unique to the hills. The simple forms and warm material palette evoke a clean modernist approach reminiscent of the early modernist homes in the area by Schindler, Neutra, and Carl Maston among others.




The exterior is clad in a combination of cinnamon-colored mangaris wood (a sustainably harvested Brazilian hardwood), smooth-troweled stucco and cement board painted brown.





To deliver as much natural light as possible, architects deployed skylights, interior glass panels and exterior glass walls, some translucent but not transparent, to preserve privacy. “The way the plan is laid out, as an L-shape rather than a block, gives the house even light throughout the interior rooms,” Southerland says.



Assembledge oriented the house on the flat promontory, ensuring sightlines from every room. “We wanted to extend what we see as the great Southern California modernist project where there is a real integration of indoors and outdoors,” Southerland says. Here we see the downstairs living room, which flows into a family room shown in the next photo.



Ceiling-to-floor movable glass walls open the expansive space to the outdoor terrace and its infinity saltwater pool. Cool-white terrazzo interior floors continue outside, unifying the spaces. “The idea was to make this continuous, uninterrupted plane that turns into water,” Thompson says. A subtle upward inflection of the roof plane farther extends south and west views.


above: A wide supporting column is wrapped in copper-hued mirrors at one corner of the family room. It captures flashes of artwork, furniture, foliage and water. “It brings in the reflections from the hills, the architecture, and even people walking by,” Southerland says. “That column is actually inside the room, so that when you close the glass doors, it reads as a transparent corner.”

More views of the copper clad supporting column:


A 1940s French Empire-style home with a mansard roof used to sit on the 13,000-square-foot site, according to architect Thompson.




His client’s desire for something more modern extended to the kitchen, lined with custom walnut cabinetry.




“I can turn any home style into quite a pad, but I really like modern,” owner Brad Blumenthal says. “Although it’s by far the most difficult type of house to design because the lines are so clean, you can’t hide anything.”


above: Back by the entry, stairs lead to the second floor. Contemporary homes are often criticized for lack of storage, but Assembledge took advantage of otherwise empty pockets of space.


above: A modern interpretation of a Japanese tansu cabinet is tucked underneath the staircase. “Rather than it being a wood cabinet, we wanted it to look as if it was part of the wall — clean and simple,” Thompson says. Note the powder room in the distance (also shown below).


above: the powder room off the main entry, with a glass wall alongside the driveway.



above: the master bath has a large glass enclosed double shower, limestone flooring and walls and a bathtub set within wenge wood.



above: The series of outdoor spaces were designed by Jonathan Goldstein of Jonny Appleseed Landscaping in Beverly Hills.

Built by Eric Engheben of 44 West Construction in Topanga, the architecture unfolds in a similar manner upstairs. An exterior wall of the master bedroom terrace has been cut away, creating a “window” toward the scenery.



It was important to the designers and their client to balance the use of glass and terrazzo with other materials that were visually warmer, thus the American walnut floor on the second floor.



And as seen at night:




floor plans:

Assembledge+
6363 wilshire blvd., #401
los angeles, ca 90048
phone 323.951.0045
fax 323.951.0046

Special thanks to photographer Michael Weschler, Debra Prinzing and the Los Angeles Times, David Thompson of Assembledge+ , 44 West Construction and pushpullbar for information, quotes and additional images.