Common Pond Plat House - construction almost complete
Its been some time since we last reported on the Plat House being built at the environmentally sensitive development, Common Pond, in Georgia. Last time we saw it the roof was going on and the rough "framing" was almost complete. Well the inside and outside are nearly complete now and the last details are being finished up on site.
You may recall from the previous posts that this was the first Plat House built from SIPs panels. That has gone well and as you can see there is little in the outward appearance of the house that reveals the energy efficiency of the SIPs construction.
Here we see the side of the house facing their view, with the decks. I was told that the final grade around the decks will be filled to eliminate the code requirement for railings which will leave the views unobstructed. The beautiful siding that has been used is cypress boards in a true board and batten pattern. This sets the batten strips on a close repeat as the width of actual boards is much smaller than the spacing of battens placed on sheet siding materials.
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In the photo browser below you can see some interesting shots of the fit out of the interior. The owner's have opted for a beautiful pine flooring. Pine is a soft wood, yet it was very common for floors in the past none the less. My house has pine on the second floor, and since we are without shoes there most of the time its worn well. You can also see some of the interior doors in a couple of the shots. They are fully glazed with a reeded pattern glass - very nice.
All in all it is another unique Plat House. I'm continuously amazed at the individual expressions created by each customer of what is essentially the same house. Each one plays out with unique materials and varied priorities to make a unique home for each owner.
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The image we saw in the 
You note from the massing model that the bedroom wing which is opposite the driveway side of the house is a half level or so down from the living room level. The intention was to put the master bedroom on this lower level, increasing its apparent distance from the living spaces. The entry to the house from the ceremonial front was on this same half level below living, and the entry from the garage deposited you at the same place. So looking at the plan, the entry hall across the front of the house narrows where it turns towards the master bedroom, a door to the suite not shown on this plan. If heading up from the entry you come to a corner where the door from the garage would be, while you were offered views into the living space through a screen wall of some sort. The stair up to the living level brings you to the corner of the kitchen work space under a lower ceiling. The higher ceiling in the living space ends in a large windowed wall with a terrace beyond. The splayed geometry of the house is generated by the site, and has a nice effect of opening the house to the landscape. At the far end of the living room is the stair going up to the bedroom level.
Now here on the second floor plan you can see how the secondary bedrooms overlook the living room. The idea would be that they could have sliding panels, or internal openings that made them like a loft overlooking the living space - remember the master bedroom below is a half level down, so these bedrooms are only a half level above the living room. A bridge like connection spans over the entry hall below bringing you to the studio space which sits above the garage. The circulation in this scheme is deliberately circuitous - it wraps around the living space like embracing arms. This was part of this effort to gather around the living space, expressed in another dimension, through the circulation and motion through the space.
Several other views follow.
Fill that would be required is not shown in these masssing studies, so the floor level can be strangely off of what would be the final grade.
The rear terrace here would create an outdoor place at the level of the living room floor, which is not reflected in this rough mock-up.
So that was the first design idea. Ultimately it was abandoned for a number of reasons, but I still find the central living space and its relationship to the surrounding rooms compelling. The lower level master bedroom is also a great adaptation to a sloping site, but a site that slopes side to side rather than front to back.
The site is a parcel of 3 acres in a low density suburban zone outside of a small college town. The proportion of the property is a narrow rectangle with the rear closing to a point. A good deal of the front end of the site is consumed by wetlands, and its wetland transition zone, which can not be disturbed. This moves the home site towards the center of the lot, a good distance from the road making for a fairly private setting. This influences issues about how the house presents itself upon approach. Does it want to have a prominent "front" door when it really does not have a street life, or should it focus on the inevitable vehicle arrival?
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Creating an entry forecourt between the garage and house.
Living spaces on top of the remainder as plinth.
A mulit-level interior space within a simple geometric volume.
An inhabited wall defines the living space.
You might notice that the windows are green (as in color, not sustainability). Nothing remarkable, but these are Andersen 400 series windows. Since like the beginning of time these windows were available in only 3 colors - white, tan, dark brown. Bleah! Nothing wrong with those colors, but Andersen offered no options for using the windows to introduce some color into your house. Meanwhile other manufacturers have been expanding their color offerings. I don't know if Andersen is experiencing competitive pressure because of this, but they have started offering a dark green now as one of their standards. Its a great thing, especially if you want to use a different color for the operable windows as the house designs show in our illustrations.
There are three more photos of the house with the windows installed posted at the 
There are a few more photos of this stage of the work also posted at the 
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Remember you can see photos of the entire build on the Flickr 
First off we have issues with construction inspection conventions in the US. Construction must be inspected before it is insulated, closed in, and the underlying work is obscured. Framing, plumbing, and electrical work are all inspected at this point. The modular industry has established a practice of third party certification to work around this, but this method would require a different routine as the proportion of site and factory work is not the same. Modular is more or less done with the set of the modules. Panelization requires the field inspector to pickup more of the inspection work again in the field, and I predict the blurring of lines of responsibility to elicit resistance. This is essentially an administrative obstacle, but real enough. This obstacle does not exist in Sweden.
Second are issues of products and standard construction practices. In Sweden products are designed to facilitate this panelization. In the US they are designed to be installed in the field. This purposeful design of construction products allows the Swedes to optimize their process. They are not fighting with the construction to break it into panels, like we would here. Next we'll look at some of these products in more detail.
Previously:
Across their courtyard you can see the 
Here you can see the interesting pattern of siding they have chosen. It appears to be a smooth faced cement board siding panel, but laid up in varying exposures. This is a treatment you might often see on a traditional cedar shingle siding and its really great to see this reinterpreted in a contemporary material like cement siding and used here.
Check out the Flickr set for this house where you can see 
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.
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A few more photos of this stage of the work were included and can be seen at the 
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.
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 
