(Brendan)
So now we are on to the next in the series of photo-realistic renderings my brother has produced to help visualize the home and tweak the finer design details. The next rendering is from a position in the family room, with one's back up against the wall that adjoins the stairway upstairs. Again, it's best to click to enlarge it to see the details better.
Again, we laughed seeing Aidan plopped in the picture way off in the corner of the terrace!
I really like this view because this really shows the design concept of this volume of the home, to separate the wetland area from the wooded area and create two separate views with the home running in between. I think this also shows how the terrace, being at the same level as the interior floor, really makes the home feel much larger than it is. In actuality, the volumes of the home are quite thin (which I think is unique and will make cooling the house in the Summer a breeze... literally), but the terrace enlarges the feeling of the spaces. Also you can see the exposed flue here, with a fireplace that my brother designed.
We had a lot of discussions after looking at this rendering with my brother. First, those doors are cool but huge. I had modeled the doors in my Google Sketch-Up rendering as the standard 7 ft. height, but here they go all the way up to the ceiling (which is 10 ft. in this room). Wouldn't those be expensive? My brother convinced my that they wouldn't. The doors are very simple and could be custom made (hollow even) using quality plywood or other basic materials. And he has no door hardware on them. It would probably cost more money to do a standard door because then you have to continue the wall above the door with the framework behind it. We did tell my brother we'd rather have the doors to be "pocket doors" or sliding doors, which he is going to try to change. The doors will almost always be open, so we'd rather not have them sticking out into the family room all the time.
Another discussion point was the height of the windows by the terrace. I had modeled these to be shorter to save cost. But my brother really felt like they needed this level of height, and this was one of the reasons he got rid of the large windows in the school room to save on cost. It is still yet to be determined what we can afford in terms of these windows, and they will certainly be subdivided into smaller, stock-size windows to lower cost.
Lastly, the fireplace is to be a see-through fireplace so that it can be used in the library area as well, something my brother forgot about. The windows on the woods side are also too large. But these are all details that can be worked out later.
So now we are on to the next in the series of photo-realistic renderings my brother has produced to help visualize the home and tweak the finer design details. The next rendering is from a position in the family room, with one's back up against the wall that adjoins the stairway upstairs. Again, it's best to click to enlarge it to see the details better.
Again, we laughed seeing Aidan plopped in the picture way off in the corner of the terrace!I really like this view because this really shows the design concept of this volume of the home, to separate the wetland area from the wooded area and create two separate views with the home running in between. I think this also shows how the terrace, being at the same level as the interior floor, really makes the home feel much larger than it is. In actuality, the volumes of the home are quite thin (which I think is unique and will make cooling the house in the Summer a breeze... literally), but the terrace enlarges the feeling of the spaces. Also you can see the exposed flue here, with a fireplace that my brother designed.
We had a lot of discussions after looking at this rendering with my brother. First, those doors are cool but huge. I had modeled the doors in my Google Sketch-Up rendering as the standard 7 ft. height, but here they go all the way up to the ceiling (which is 10 ft. in this room). Wouldn't those be expensive? My brother convinced my that they wouldn't. The doors are very simple and could be custom made (hollow even) using quality plywood or other basic materials. And he has no door hardware on them. It would probably cost more money to do a standard door because then you have to continue the wall above the door with the framework behind it. We did tell my brother we'd rather have the doors to be "pocket doors" or sliding doors, which he is going to try to change. The doors will almost always be open, so we'd rather not have them sticking out into the family room all the time.
Another discussion point was the height of the windows by the terrace. I had modeled these to be shorter to save cost. But my brother really felt like they needed this level of height, and this was one of the reasons he got rid of the large windows in the school room to save on cost. It is still yet to be determined what we can afford in terms of these windows, and they will certainly be subdivided into smaller, stock-size windows to lower cost.
Lastly, the fireplace is to be a see-through fireplace so that it can be used in the library area as well, something my brother forgot about. The windows on the woods side are also too large. But these are all details that can be worked out later.
3 comments:
Are the doors necessary at all, really? I like this rendering very much. Would like to see the wall behind the fireplace and its exposed flue made of some interesting material--- stone, perhaps? Could also be painted some suitable accent color at far less cost.
The doors are actually necessary, they are a later addition that I requested (if you go back to the first release of Scheme D there actually are no doors). The main issue with the lower level is that there was not a single space that could be closed off or acoustically closed from other spaces. Essentially that meant that not only was there no area where privacy could be created, it also meant that there was no area to have a men's group meeting or women's group meeting without kicking everyone else up to the upper floor. After reading "The not so big house", I saw the importance of having a mix of open and closed spaces.
Thanks for the suggestions on the wall behind the fireplace!
And with a large (sometimes loud) family, one does need another place other than his bedroom (which will likely already be infested with other siblings) to find some quiet to read, relax, or just think. I think Eleanor will be using this space a lot!
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