Thinking of Eames ... Retro Modern Groove In Newer Designs
I'm really in to the Case Study Houses right now. My favorites are the simple ones like CSH#4 (which never got built) and CSH#21. But the more I think about what I want in a place for my family though, the more I start leaning toward something roomier like the the Eames House, CSH#8. I'm also inspired by the sort of retro vibe at DO Research, which always makes me think of the Eames. And I always really dug the Eames furniture, all of it, in a big way.
This documentary short by the Charles and Ray Eames gives you the spirit of the house:
A lot of recent designs evoke the Eames' groove:
Flatpak House from Lazor Office (images from the Flickr set)
EcoContempo 6030 and 6040 by Lavardera (images from LamiDesign Blog) - Greg, leave us a comment - were you inspired by Eames?
Royal Homes Muskoka Modern (images from Royal Homes site). By the way, nice mudroom. My chief gripe about most modern homes - no good entry for muddy feet. Come to Detroit in February and see what I mean.
I'd have said, "build me a house around this ..."
... but Eames already did. And any one of these three new designs would do the trick too.
6 comment(s):
Great post, John. That bit about mud rooms rings so true!
Have you seen the site for Arts and Architecture? Case Study House Porn..... http://www.artsandarchitecture.com/
Thanks Justin. Boy, that is a killer link. I just keep paging through ...
Yes, what you said about recent designs echoing the Eames House seems so true.
And Charles intended his house to be the ultimate in "pre-fab" because it was supposed to be constructed entirely of off-the-shelf parts that anyone could order from industrial supply catalogs.
John - great post. The Eames house is a big inspiration for me. It bears a relationship to the 6030 and 6040 house not so much in their design, but in their building system (which I did not design). The Eames were leveraging affordable industrial building components to build a house. The steel skeleton, the open web floor and roof trusses were not brand new stuff, but the notion of building a house of them was. This has a direct bearing on the commercial building system that is used to build the 6030 and 6040 house that is branded as the EcoSteel building system. The method of framing is not the same as the Eames house, but the appropriation of a commercial/industrial building method is essentially the same.
As far as more direct inspiration, my Steel Case House from my house plan collection is the most directly influenced by the Eames house of any of my designs. It shares some characteristics with the Eames house - the long organization with a two story living room overlooked by a loft on one end of the house is similar. The proportion is much different, and the whole approach to the house is different. The resultant experience of the house is changed by these characteristics, yet the inspiration is clear.
Hi John,
This is great a great post as is your blog. But what do I need to do to my browser to stop that layer from blocking your content after the whole page loads?
Nick
Hi Nick,
I'm terribly sorry about that problem. I don't know what it is, but I've taken it up with Blogger and unfortunately they weren't much help. They do know it is a problem related to Internet Explorer. There is no problem with other browsers.
I recommend downloading and using Firefox - it's totally free and in my opinion vastly superior to Internet Explorer anyway. And it solves the problem some people have not being able to see my site, for whatever reason.
I am considering moving my blog over to another platform due to this issue. I am very happy on Blogger except for this problem, but that's a big problem. And lack of good support from Blogger doesn't help.
Again, my apologies. I have been aware of this for some time and it is quite frustrating. Firefox is the only "fix" I know of.
Thanks very much for your nice comments about Future House Now. It is much appreciated.
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