EYE ON DESIGN by Dan Gregory

Color Wheels Within Wheels

This week I’d like to introduce Guest Editor Natalya Anissimova, a designer with a degree in physics. She offers an introduction to the color wheel –  and how it can help you personalize your new home.

“Different colors can be created by mixing the three primary colors – Red, Yellow

and Blue. Secondary colors are the simple mix of primaries – Orange [Red + Yellow], Green [Yellow + Blue], and Violet [Blue + Red]. When the primary color is mixed with a secondary it becomes a tertiary, for example, Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange. Thus we have the 12 color wheel – there are 3 primary colors, 3 secondary and 6 tertiary colors.

The color wheel, especially it’s ‘pocket’ version, which you can buy at every art Continue reading →

Making an Entrance

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland the doorway is a sticking point — the heroine is either too big to squeeze through or too small to reach the handle. Well, if we added today’s wide array of entry door choices, as demonstrated at last week’s PCBC (Pacific Coast Builders Show) in San Diego, Alice could have entered Wonderland in a flash no matter what she ate or drank…then again maybe it would have taken a lot longer just to decide which door to open. In any case door choices are expanding. Here’s a quick run-down, prompted by my tour of the PCBC exhibit floor. Loewen now offers their series of aluminum-clad

glass doors in “Candy Apple Red” as shown in this sliding bi-fold unit. It’s one of many new colors included in their latest palette of architectural finishes, Continue reading →

Building on a Regional Modernism

Our Exclusives Collection is expanding dramatically, most recently with work by Berkeley architect Cathy Schwabe. Before launching her own practice Cathy worked with well known Bay Area architect Joe Esherick at his firm EHDD. She says:  “For me, Joe’s often-quoted question ‘How would a farmer do it?’ means designing buildings that make sense on their sites, whose practical approach to materials and construction details ensures that they will last and whose design

has a straightforward, simple beauty.” You can see this principle deftly demonstrated in her 864 sq. ft. modern, shed-roofed, board-and-batten studio, shown here opening to a flagstone terrace. It’s our Plan 891-1 (all photos by Continue reading →

Line Dancing in the Landscape

Revisiting the great public parkway in New York City known as The High Line recently made me appreciate once again the power of design to make you see the world in fresh ways or as if for the first time. Created by James Corner Field Operations (Project Lead), Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and planting designer Piet Oudolf for the City of New York, it occupies the tracks of a defunct elevated freight rail line snaking through the West Side of Manhattan from Gansevoort Street to West 30th Street. Maintained and operated by Friends of the High Line, it opened in 2009 and another section was completed in 2011. I joined crowds of Continue reading →

Nir Pearlson Rethinks the Simple Home

I’m excited to welcome Oregon architect Nir Pearlson to Houseplans.com –  his designs are the latest additions to our Exclusives Collection. With experience as both craftsman/builder and architect, Nir has brought new energy to compact and sustainable home design. In fact, he just won Fine Homebuilding magazine’s 2013 Small Home of the Year Award for an 800 sq. ft., two bedroom one bath garden cottage. The magazine recognized the design “for its shared spaces and connections to the outdoors that make it seem larger than its physical boundaries…” And guess what?! It’s our new Plan 890-1! The layout is

mostly one open space containing kitchen and living-dining area connecting to a

large wrap-around deck, as shown here (all photos in this post by Mike Dean, courtesy Nir Pearlson). Nir explains that he designed the house as a series of roughly 12 foot-square modules — they overlap to comprise the main living area. Key elements define individual “rooms” without separating one from another,

effectively making the main space feel larger than it is, like this window seat with storage drawers. The built-in platform and overhead beam frame the seat as a separate unit without cutting it off from the larger space. The kitchen peninsula

(a warm-toned granite) performs a similar function — see the window alcove in the distance — as does the central wood stove on its slate pad. Naturally dyed

plaster wall finish, and red oak floor and Douglas fir and hemlock trim add visual warmth. Nir designed the house to be as energy-wise as possible, with rigid foam insulation in walls and roof, and separate photo-voltaic arrays — a larger one

for generating electricity and a smaller one for hot water — which are visible on the roof in the photo. It’s definitely the little award-winning cottage that could!

Nir designed this 800 sq. foot two story home — Plan 890-3 — to function as a

backyard cottage. Two bedrooms are on the lower level; kitchen and living space are on the floor above and open to the charming porch you see here. While this version of the cottage tucks into the toe of a slope, it could easily be adapted for other site conditions. Stay tuned as we add more Pearlson plans. Welcome Nir!