Landscaping of La Vardera's Vermont Plat House Underway

Ever since running across rolu|dsgn's great modernist treatment of the first hiveMODULAR house I've been on the lookout for other examples of appropriate landscaping for modernist homes. It's been harder than I thought it would be. But here's something to watch: the cool Vermont Plat House by architect Greg La Vardera just kicked off its landscaping. I'll be curious to see how it turns out. But if it is like the rest of the project it will be great.




Definitely drop in on the project, which is chronicled in Greg's blog from start to finish in twenty-six posts (and counting).


Image credit - LamiDesign Modern House Plan Blog

Cool Green Homes from Famed Architect Steven Holl

Today in Wired there's a great multimedia feature on famed architect Steven Holl. Holl does wonderful, forward-looking work and incorporates a lot of green elements in his designs. The Wired piece shows off ten of his projects (selected from Holl's new book). One of them is a cool house in Hawaii. The two L-shaped structures mimic shifting tectonic plates, a nod to the island's volcanic geology - very clever. I like the look, and the solar paneled roofs. Doesn't look like a bad place to live, now does it?




Here's another totally hip house from Holl's website - the Little Tesseract House in New York. It's a 1200 square foot addition to an existing, small stone house. The addition makes for great solar design with huge banks of south and east facing glass planks that absorb winter sun and release it back into the house at night. A small man-made pond next to the house is fed solely from rainwater collected by the roof, and in the summer it helps cool prevailing breezes flowing toward the house, which are scooped up by wide-opening windows. The house has a "chimney" design with openings on the upper floor to help ventilate warm air. A green roof of sedum tops off the addition, and PV panels on the roof of the original structure provide what little power the house needs.






This is one of the slickest houses I've seen. I like the green features and the funky look. Of course, it's actually Holl's own. His weekend house, in fact. Personally, I think it would make a fine full-time residence.

You can also see and read a lot more about the Little Tesseract House in the excellent book The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture.




Image credits - Wired, Steven Holl Architects site, Amazon.com listing

Check Out the rolu|dsgn Flickr Photo Album

Just in case you don't catch the comment from Matt Olson of Rosenlof/Lucas in my earlier post, take a look at rolu dsgn Flickr photo account for more examples of their modernist landscaping, and some interesting landscaping and buildings that inspire them (me too!).

Here's just one photo from the album of a second Hive Modular B-Line rolu landscaped. I love that front walk! You can see more on this house on Flickr.




Don't miss it - click over to Flickr and check it out. The guys at rolu have a great eye and are doing super work. Great stuff. Thanks for the link, Matt!

Modern Landscaping on Hive Modular House - Rosenlof/Lucas Get it Right!

I get a lot of inspiration from Preston over at Jetson Green. His site is really great, and he's so good at finding neat stuff. Yesterday he had post where he's run across a great blog, Nashville Modern Prefab, and put up a YouTube video of a 3-D model of a new Hive Modular house being built for the blog's author, plus links to some other Hive Modular related videos. Great stuff.

I have to say, I really liked the video of the original Hive Modular B-Line House prototype in Minneapolis (below). It's done as a video invite to an open house featuring the B-Line as well as the cool modern landscaping done by Rosenlof/Lucas Landscape Design and Installation. I love the house, as I've posted before, but the landscaping was what really caught my eye.





I love the low-impact driveway and the gabion fence. Both those designs are now stored away in my mind for use on my family's future home. These guys are doing some cool stuff. You've got to take a look at the photos of their work on their site - 49 pics in their slide show - and click over to the rolu|dsng blog. You will love it. Not to be missed.

Landscaping is so critical. Your house has to harmonize with the site, and your landscaping has to respect the site as well as enhance the structure of the house. All the pieces need to fit together. A big lawn and a long, hard-surfaced driveway can be very high impact. The guys at rolu show how to put it all together, in modern style, with clever green designs. Just awesome.