From the architect. The clients for this 500-square-foot addition to a very traditional log house wanted something different for a contemplative study away from the rest of the house. Being avid art collectors, they also had several key pieces that needed to be incorporated into the design including a large outdoor sculpture.
Located on a butte overlooking Jackson Hole, the addition responds to views, playing upon the contrast of prospect and refuge. This was achieved with rammed earth walls on the south and east, and a full wall of glass on the north. Horizontal slot windows in the rammed earth walls provide framed views to the Sleeping Indian and Wolf Mountain to the east and south. A simple shed roof floats above the entire composition, reinforcing the grounding effect of the rammed earth walls. A skylight parallel to the east wall illuminates the horizontal striations of the earth layers, celebrating the inherent beauty of the materials. A curving wood and copper gallery links the existing house and new space. An outdoor shower, sheltered by a steel screen commissioned from a local artist, occupies the space between the existing house and the addition.
The form of the addition creates a protected courtyard that mediates between old and new. A monumental bronze sculpture is placed strategically to frame views from both the existing house and the new studio. Bronze-clad windows, bonderized steel walls, and rammed earth deliberately contrast with the existing traditional log house. Stained concrete floors, clear vertical grain millwork, integrally colored plaster, and a copper ceiling complete the interior expression. The room is minimally furnished with classic modern furniture and a 400-year-old Chinese Buddha head.
The firm was hired for a second project that consisted of a 225-square-foot bath renovation. Similar to the approach taken at the addition, the character of this renovation was a deliberate departure from the existing log house. A large floor-to-ceiling window connects the space to the outdoors and creates a light, bright interior. Walls and floors are clad in Salvatori lava stone to provide a spa-like feel. A free-standing bathtub and a functional light sculpture become focal points for the room. A minimalist approach to the vanities include cantilevered counters and deliberately off-set sinks to maximize space.
Product Description. Located on a butte overlooking Jackson Hole, the addition responds to views, playing upon the contrast of prospect and refuge. This was achieved with rammed earth walls on the south and east, and a full wall of glass on the north. Horizontal slot windows in the rammed earth walls provide framed views to the Sleeping Indian and Wolf Mountain to the east and south. A simple shed roof floats above the entire composition, reinforcing the grounding effect of the rammed earth walls.
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
Karen Lamb
Just a quick heads up today.
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Until 1.00 p.m EST (that’s 18.00 GMT) on Monday the 9:th of January you can still join it.
So if you are interested in that – and in getting the free bonus course 31 Days to a Simpler Life worth $27 + the 6 extra bonus guides – then now is the time to take action.
Click here to learn more about Stop Procrastinating Now and to join it before the doors close
Dutch journalist Peter Veenendaal has completed a website that features all 136 built works by modernist Willem Marinus Dudok. Dudok, who was formally trained as an engineer, has been hailed as one of the Netherlands’ most influential architects, boasting a prolific career beginning with military barracks and encompassing numerous municipal buildings throughout Europe. Influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, Dudok is remembered for his form-driven modernism, leaving his legacy in the work of later architects from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
Veenendaal has dedicated a substantial portion of his career to documenting Dudok’s work, including a documentary of his most significant projects entitled “City of Light.” Continue on to Veenendaal’s new website here to explore Dudok’s full portfolio.
“City of Light”: The Story of Willem Dudok’s De Bijenkorf Rotterdam
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Willem Dudok: Meet the Father of Dutch Modernism
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You’re reading The Girl with the Red Shoes – How One Fairy Tale Restored My Wild Heart, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
“There once was a little orphan girl who made herself lovely red shoes out of scrap cloth, and they mean the world to her.
An old woman adopts the girl into a pristine world of gilded carriages and crisp white stockings where she is made to sit all the time, walk without skipping, and not speak unless spoken to.
Soon enough, her adoptive mother tosses her lovingly crafted shoes are tossed into the fire, causing immense pain that she must hide…”
When I was sixteen years old I had a vivid dream about a child who carried a small wick. It was only through the intensity of her existence that it lit and burned fiercely, setting all things nearby alight.
I carefully painted this dream over many hours; it was an expression of my basic joy, and another step on the path to discover my own wild way.
Through the years such spontaneous moments fight to be born each moment, because incrementally I’ve learned small – but sticky – lessons:
Aged 4: I’m the wrong gender to play with that toy. Aged 11: I wrote an essay from the heart, but it doesn’t fit in with the curriculum. Aged 16: I laughed a bit too loud for group. Aged 23: I gave a solution to a problem that is a bit unorthodox. Aged 26: I reach to touch a loved one at just the wrong time, on the wrong day.
Each lesson throws another scrap of those lovely red shoes onto the fire. The threads turn to ember, there’s famine in my soul, and a hush descends over my wild heart.
“…The hunger in the little girl’s heart causes her to reach instead for shiny red leather shoes, which soon enough attract so much attention and admiration she starts to love them.
Dancing in these beautiful new red shoes for all those who gawk and stare, they start to consume the girl’s every thought, and all her desires – she feels empty without them…”
I look for substitutes to fill the sense of emptiness in my heart – the heroic romantic partner, validation through my career, and travelling the circumference of the world, only to arrive right back face to face with the void.
The real desire is to rediscover my wild nature, and with it a meaningful life.
“…One day the girl with the Red Shoes met a soldier who told her “what beautiful dancing shoes!”, and so she twirled. The more people stared, the more she danced; once her feet started she could not stop!
Soon enough she wanted to dance left, but the shoes would dance her to the right, and then she wanted to dance around, but the shoes would dance her the other way around…”
Without full awareness, I am ducking to avoid my demons.
Failure is no longer accepted as part of the creative curve, but a nasty punishable act that will have – to my mind – devastating and crushing results. And so, I no longer skip joyously, flowing in the rich potentiality of each moment, but dance feverishly in the direction of the hoards; hoping to belong, and to be loved.
“…The girl was scared and wanted to take off the shoes, but they would not budge. And so she danced, she danced over hills, through valleys and gloomy forests, rain or snow, sunrise through sunset and the dancing itself was terrible, and the girl got no rest…”
I’m standing on the precipice of truth and it’s uncomfortable: Life has become a tame thing.
Creativity fades in a quest for perfection, pursuits that waste time are followed, and talents that showed potential are forgotten.
Fairy tales aren’t concerned with my comfort, carefully crafted story arcs, and rounded conclusions. They are designed to find the best entry point into my psyche in order to deliver urgent truths that will set me on a transformative journey.
With compassion, they will not deprive me of my deepest low.
Awareness of this deterioration allows me to understand that intervention is imperative: I must fight on the part of my wildish self. Though it will hurt, it is the most worthy battle I will know.
“…In exhaustion and horror she danced into a forest where the towns’ executioner lived.
He tried to cut off her shoes but they stayed on her feet, so she cried for him to cut off her feet, and so he did. And the shoes, with the girl’s feet, kept dancing and dancing through the briars, over the hills, across the moors and out of sight.”
The story of Girl in the Red Shoes made one terrible mistake: she believed that forces outside herself held the key to her happiness, and so she nearly lost herself. Her story is both short and brutal: she only had one shot and her feet, which are representative of her mobility, and freedom, were lost forever.
And so, I feel gratitude, because I am in a glorious position! Life ever-flows, and provides new waves of opportunity each day that overlap and flow toward me like chapters ready to written anew.
Long past the end of this fairy tale, I have learned that my value is not forged in the flames of collective agreement. Each day I remember to wear my own simple red shoes, and dance to the beat of my own imperfect life, joyous in its own wildish way.
And so I ask you, wild little girl: will you choose to dance, or will you choose your wild freedom?
You’ve read The Girl with the Red Shoes – How One Fairy Tale Restored My Wild Heart, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Sometimes, the most remarkable moments in life are the simple ones. There will be 365 sunsets at Glacier National Park in Montana this year. Don’t you think you should see at least one? Photo by Jacob W. Frank, National Park Service.
1. The reuse of two former artisan sheds is the opportunity to score an anonymous urban environment and degraded by the power and strength of the architecture. In this project we used crude materials to make the surfaces very expressive.
2. Concetta D’Alessandro Foundation is a non-profit organization that deals with treatment and rehabilitation of people with disabilities.
The program included the reuse of two former artisan sheds for rehabilitation and training.
The ground floor it has been converted into a guesthouse and the first floor, under the great vaulted roof, it was built a large space for group activities. Two low volumes host the services and form an entrance vestibule to the main hall. The realization of this hall has necessitated the addition of a lift and a new staircase. This body has been turned into a new large facade characterized by a skin obtained through the recycling of plastic boxes for the collection of the oranges.
3. The new body, through his use of color and lighting, has thus assumed the role of signal, a symbol recognizable to distance in the anonymous surrounding cityscape.
This project, on the one hand, is the advancement of research, started ten years ago, about the reuse of plastic crates as building material for architecture, on the other hand is a way to put the shape and the ornament of architecture as a powerful tool for promoting social actions of great value.This facade ennobles poor materials transforming them, through drawing and weaving, into a powerful aesthetic signal that strengthens the building identity.
4. The space of the main hall is shaped by a great vault that stretches like a wrinkled cloth under the roof. The vault remains outstanding on the plane defined by the wooden planks of the floor. The new body has a steel structure and a cladding made from plastic boxes (used for the harvest of oranges) in two shades of green. The boxes are like pixels of a texture featuring a plot drawn by parallel diagonal lines of a light green.
We have previously published the best apps for architects, many of which try to boost creativity and productivity for project design. Now, we’ve put together a series of helpful apps for the development and management of construction projects. From digital measuring tools to instant software-generated reports of work progress, we hope this new construction technology will be most useful to you.
Doing information surveys can be very easy on the job and without having to carry an entire belt of physical tools. Angle Meter PRO is a digital tool that allows you to measure the angles or slopes on the job with a high degree of precision, in different modes from the app, from your tablet or cell phone’s camera.
This application calculates the required amounts of concrete and rebar for any particular project. It also calculates the cost and waste of the material and allows users to instantly send e-mail estimates to their team members and customers.
With Project Planning Pro version 2.0, on-site project management is easy and effective for collaborations between team members. This tool is ideal for generating project plans instantly, entering tasks, duration and start dates, or to import existing Microsoft Project files and edit and update them through the application. Check their blog, where they have interesting articles related to project management.
Site Audit Pro is a productivity application designed to make inspections, audits or reports and manage them from anywhere. Through it, you can capture photos or upload existing images, add annotations or comments and share reports via email, Dropbox or Google Drive.
A free digital tool that allows you to check the level of surfaces using only your cell phone thanks to the built-in accelerometer. This pocket leveler features a traditional bubble level interface and also a digital display of the current angle, measured in degrees from the horizontal.
You can save 30 to 45 minutes for each site visit report with ArchiReport, a complete software for tracking works that automatically generates detailed reports with photos, designs, drawings and annotations.
This free application allows you to store and share object dimensions and spaces. Just take a photograph of the object or space and add its dimensions with arrows, angles, and comments so that everything is easily understandable.
BIMx, GRAPHISOFT’s mobile BIM communication tool, has the ‘Hyper-model BIMx’, a unique technology for navigating plans and 3D construction models in an integrated way and for visualizing information on building components.
One of Autodesk’s free applications for building management is BIM 360 Docs, which allows you to publish, manage and review all documents, plans and project models in the cloud.
Construction Manager is designed to manage, edit, save, and share a regular and accurate flow of information, and through its various forms – maintenance records, daily reports, project estimates and time sheets – you can record and follow all important processes and events during construction.
This digital calculator values both normal and unit calculations for a variety of construction projects, including beams, columns, staircases, drywall, paint, decking, roof systems and floors. In addition, it not only tracks important project information, it can also store project documents (such as budgets, contracts, and plans) and images (either by attaching images to the library or by taking new ones).
Plan Grid is a very intuitive application where you can share plans, annotations, photos and reports instantly with all your equipment. This is a great help to follow the revisions, to examine progress and to manage the problems and punch list when working.
The applications previously ranked are very useful for day to day construction, but the love of sketches by hand never dies and thanks to Trace you can sketch, draw, annotate and design at any time, even in the work. The Morpholio Apps combines the beauty and speed of drawing with the intelligence and accuracy of CAD.
Top 10 Technical Apps for Architects
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Top 10 Apps for Architects
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Bryce Canyon National Park – Utah – USA (by Florent Lamoureux)
Sig Nordal 