Unusual Life

Robert McLaughlin, who has created the fabulous website KC Modern and also the blog http://www.kcmodern.blogspot.com/, has photographed dozens of modern homes in Southern California. Above is a photo from a set called SoCal Modern Residential.

Space ship house, originally uploaded by MizMagee.

Located on the Richardson Highway, approaching North Pole from Fairbanks. For years it’s been a natural log structure, but he just painted it in a whimsical fashion to the delight of those passing by.

The Cave House in Tulsa, OK, originally uploaded by queenodesign.

“Built in 1920s by Joseph Koberling Sr. and James Purzer. Onetime restaurant and “speakeasy” with Pretty Boy Floyd as a guest. Now the tunnels are currently sealed off. It is rumored that the park across the street, Newblock Park, is a mass grave with the bodies of the black victims from the 1921 Race Riots.”

  

ugly house, originally uploaded by Dept. of Treasure.

The photographer’s caption for this home is “ugly house” but I love it! It’s just so weird and wacky. I wish I knew where it was, I’d talk to the homeowner and get the story. You know it’s gotta be good!    -  Marlow Harris

-  And here is a Flickr Group slideshow of Pink and Purple Houses  -  jodavid

Googie Gas Station, originally uploaded by EncinoMan.

Man, this is a beautiful example of Googie architecture, roadside attractions from the Space Age 50′s and 60′s, designed to project hope for the future as we raced to the moon.

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

Szymbark, Pomorze, Poland, originally uploaded by LeszekZadlo.

The Upside Down House is a project created by a Polish businessman and philanthropist named Daniel Czapiewski, and is located in Poland in the tiny village of Szymbark, and here are a few pics with this house. Rather than simply being a bizarre tourist attraction this house, managed to attract thousands of tourists. The house is also meant to be a profound statement about the Communist era and the state of the world. Czapiewski’s company would normally take three weeks to construct a house, but this one took 114 days because the workers were disorientated by the strange angles of the walls. Many tourists who visit complain of mild seasickness and dizziness after just a few minutes of being in the structure.

Amazing Polish Upside Down House

DOME House, originally uploaded by micamica.

An experimental home in the line of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome home.

Here’s an interior shot:

Those windows would be awesome.

Painted Lady, originally uploaded by derickcarss.

Here’s an architectural detail of a beautiful Painted Lady on a San Francisco Victorian home. Beautiful!

If you don’t care if your neighbors hate you:

More frightening images:

Bruce and Melanie Rosenbaum of Sharon, Massachusetts have  remodeled their 1901 Craftsman style Victorian home with an unusual steampunk design aesthetic, and actually have a business where they will give your home it’s own Steampunk Home Design. 

Read the Steampunk Workshop’s wonderful account of their visit to Bruce and Melanie’s home for the detailed description of the artistic and functional updates to this makeover, plus many more detail photos. It looks so intriguing and comfortable that I’m all ready thinking of ways to seriously employ this aesthetic into parts of our 1914 home.

And a Tip-o-th-hat to Cory Doctorow at boingboing.net for the heads-up on this gem!

David Fisher’s Dynamic Tower is the world’s first building in motion, where each floor of the Tower rotates independently at different speeds, in different directions, resulting in a unique and ever-evolving shape.

The Dynamic Tower is a self-powered Green building with the ability to generate electricity for itself through the use of horizontal wind turbines and solar panels.

The first skyscraper to be built entirely from pre-fabricated parts custom-made in a factory, the assembly process of the Dynamic Tower will reduce construction time, offer cost savings, provide an environmental construction site and increase safety for workers on site.

This is the Fennell Residence in Portland, Oregon, designed in 2001, completed in 2005.

The Fennell residence, as a floating house, presented a unique opportunity for design.

The imaginative use of curved glue lam beams evoke the poetry of the ripples and contours of a river. The expansive glass facade embraces the river and frames the sunset, and one accesses the deck via an expansive sliding glass door.

A master bedroom sits over a study and looks out over the living dining area and out to the river beyond.

The curvilinear forms create spacial differentiation that enhance the experience of time as light plays through the daily and seasonal changes.

Robert Harvey Oshatz, Architect

James May, with the help of 1,000 volunteers built a two-story Lego house using 3.3 million Lego bricks. The kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom were all furnished with Legos, down to the last detail, even a “stained glass” window. The home needed to be moved and May was willing to give it away free, but he ran out of time and it was destroyed yesterday.

Link of 13 photos originally posted in the Telegraph, and more information posted in the San Francisco Chronicle.
A big tip-o-th-hat to Ken Duffy for the heads-up on the Lego house.