Sunday, February 28, 2010

What If Solution - "Treehouse"

(click for full image)

Above is my solution to the statement "What if your house trapped people?"

Firstly let me say this is not an image of a house that traps people, it's the solution I came to through processing the statement.

First I thought about being trapped and how it could relate to one of the real concepts of the house. I came up with the idea of seclusion and the fact that the only difference between captivity and seclusion is that the latter is voluntary. I also thought about how the idea of living in a glass house in the woods would be hell for some people.

Finally I began to think about the visuals of being trapped or captured. The first image that came to mind was that of vertical bars. The more I dwelled on this visual the less I saw bars and the more I saw trees in a forest which brought me full circle. I've mentioned in my book that one of the ideas behind using steel I beams was to bring an element to the house that mimicked the trees that are so central to the project as a whole. I decided in the end to express this concept literally; as the structure extends upwards steel becomes wood and 17 I beams are transformed into a forest.

2 comments:

  1. This was a beautiful exercise in restraint, and a very successful series of juxtapositions: details revealed in minimalism; modern, but warm; loosely drawn, but controlled linework...

    While your work to date has been simple and elegant, this "What If" introduced a humanistic influence that hasn't been so pronounced as of yet. I'm curious how this handling might affect your book's design moving forward?

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  2. I don't see it dramatically effecting the layout of the book. However I've decided to include it in the section that covers the graphic design projects that have spawned from the house.

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