Monday, January 21, 2008

Austin Porch House - roof's on, Plat House framing up

A big update from our customer in Austin. The Porch House is moving right along and is all sheathed in and under roof. The adjacent Plat House which they are also building - yes its a Camp House compound - is well under way with the framing going vertical. The Owner has over a dozen new photos for us which you can see in a photo browser after the jump. Some of the adaptations the Owner is making are obvious in these photos. You'll see an additional wall of windows on the side of the living room which greatly expands their view. And the roof slope which they have added to simplify collecting their rainwater is also easy to spot as well. You'll also see that the Owner has been welding up his own framing connectors for the Porch level posts and beams. This is an awesome hands on effort by the owner. Follow the link below to continue reading and more photos. Check out the Flickr set for this house where you can see all of the photos to date. And the photos are also part of theLamiDesign House Plan photo pool.

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Virginia Plat House - shell framing complete

A few new photos from the owner of the Virginia Plat House show the wall and roof sheathing beginning to go up. He reports that it is all up at the time he forwarded these new photos. A few more photos of this stage of the work were included and can be seen at the flickr set for this project. Drop in on the LamiDesign Flickr photo pool to see all the photos that we and others have posted of our house designs under construction.

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Sunday, January 20, 2008

Nova Scotia Plat House mod

This is the start of another great Plat House project by Canadian architect Ross Macintosh. Ross provided the design services for the modification of the Plat House design on Prince Edward Island. This project will be located on Ballantynes Cove, Nova Scotia on a fantastic site overlooking the ocean. Ross has done a great job again expanding on the design themes in the Plat House design and adapting it to the local climate. see more images, follow the link below The site slopes quickly away from the level where you arrive and they have taken advantage of that to expand the area of the house with a daylight basement on the down-slope side. The second bedroom has been enlarged to make both bedrooms similar in size, gaining space from the utility room moved to the basement level. The stair down is located in an extension of the floor plan on the entry side of the house. This mod is similar to the PEI version where this added space allowed them to gain a third bedroom. I like the way the porch roof has shifted to one side in order to connect to the small out structure (sauna?). They have just begun the construction drawings so we won't see construction start for a little while, but stay tuned. Its going to be a great project.

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Saturday, January 12, 2008

Virginia Plat House - roof framed

New photos from the owner of the Virginia Plat House today. The framing of the roof is almost complete - the overhang at one side still needs to go in. These photos are from December, before xmas, so its likely that the roof is complete and the house sheathed by now. A few more photos are posted after the jump below, and of course all of the photos we have received can be seen at the flickr set for this project.

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Sunday, January 06, 2008

Letters from Sweden - Europe is different, Sweden is not, sort of..

Sorry for the delay in this series. I've been trying to figure out the best way to present these observations. Its time to look at the process in detail, but too much to cover in one entry, so how to break it up. I've decided that first we'll look at what goes on in the factory, and then on the site, and contrast both to prefab and site building practices in the US. But before we look at the studs and nail guns we have to consider their business model, and how it is different.

My correspondent from Sweden, Scott Hedges explained to me early on that there was more similar about the USA and Sweden than there was different. Sweden is bias towards suburban development, much as we do in the US. This is in contrast to other parts of Europe which tend towards more urban and village density for new development. Sweden like the US has the open space needed to develop housing in a suburban pattern, and like the US there is a relatively abundant timber resource for building houses of wood. So Sweden is like the US - they build suburban houses, in suburban neighborhoods. Yet the way they build the houses, the design of the houses they build are so different. Click through below to read the rest of this story.
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