Unusual Life

Opera House In Pink, originally uploaded by judepics.

Sydney Opera House, lit up pink for Breast Awareness Week.

Obscura Day is an international celebration of wondrous, curious, and esoteric places and you’re invited!

Atlas Obscura, the website compendium of strange and unusual places, is hosting a worldwide tour day on Saturday, March 20th.

Fans of Atlas Obscura are planning weird and unusual tours into places rarely seen by the public and you can view the website to see if your town is listed for this great day celebrating Unusual Life!

Bart Prince is an American-born architect who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is known for his organic and flowing architectural forms that are designed to harmonize with the environment. Pictured is a home he designed for Steve Skilen in Columbus Ohio. The curvilinear glass-and-copper-clad residence had to be beautiful from the air, since Steve comes in by helicopter.

Prince made this home to form hidden lower levels and shored it up with stone walls. Bananas, papayas, guavas and other tropical fruits and flowers grow in the garden, which is enclosed in a domed conservatory near the man-made pond and waterfall.

“We wanted everything to be transparent, not translucent,” Prince says. “There are almost no blinds, draperies or brise-soleils.” Windowpanes, which cover three quarters of the exterior, enclose the storm room. Glass guardrails “join the spaces visually.”

Beams radiate from a central column in the main living area. Above it is the storm room; below, accessible by a ramp, are the pool and garden area. Inside the column are the house’s mechanical and electrical systems. Sandstone quarried on-site was used for the fireplace, at rear.

The master bedroom, which has a private balcony, is set at the top of a spiral staircase that links the four rooms in the bedroom wing.

A 75-foot-long pool winds its way along the lower level of the house. “The owner wanted a lap pool running through a tropical garden, with palm trees and bananas and views of the sky,” the architect says. “The living spaces are arranged around that.”

www.BartPrince.com

Incredible little house that is part-organic, part-pop culture. A miniature Flintstones House of delight.