12/02/10 – Los Angeles – Large Single Family >2500 sqft

Posted on: February 12th, 2010 | 10 Comments

Completed Design by Brad W
Completed Design by MollyK

  • BradW

    Matthew, John

    Thanks to you and your staff very much for all your hard work transforming and improving the site. Have fun in LA!

  • BradW

    A couple of interesting articles by Mays in the Globe.

    The first gives an introduction to the best in Toronto residential architecture. Interestingly, like LA, many of the best examples are found on difficult ravine sites.
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/toronto-ravine-home-a-subtly-moulded-modernism/article1456244/

    The second article muses about pre-fab architecture. LivingHomes and other LA firms are mentioned.
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/prefab-opens-a-new-material-world/article1464691/

  • BradW

    One last thing before I sign off for the week. I would encourage any of you haven’t done so to click on the HouseBrand icon at the bottom right of the site. Have a look through the projects and how they are presented. One of the criticisms of the Slow Home book we reviewed last year was a lack of examples of what to do. Well here it is.

    (Before I completely sell out, let me just say some different colour combinations for the exteriors could be considered :) )

  • John Brown

    Brad,
    Thanks for the nice words about housebrand. All I can say is dark colors look better in the snow !

    I appreciate the link to the Globe article on Toronto houses. A good prep for the coming month. I have to say I am looking forward to it.

    On another note I thought the group might find this article on “slumburbia” from the NY Times interesting.

    Have a good weekend everyone.

    http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/slumburbia/?emc=eta1

  • Mid America Mom

    [img]hpim1449.jpg[/img]

    Get ready for the Toronto new condo market! A picture for you taken of the CN tower at night(if I can get it to post).

  • Paul C

    John,
    Thanks for the NY Times link and maybe I will start the discussion off.
    What correlation do you see between “slumburbia” and the Slow Home philosophy?

  • Mid America Mom

    Toronto waterfront taken from a boat a photobucket account. http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t298/tshop144/Slow%20Home%20Toronto/HPIM0136.jpg

  • Terri

    Brad,
    Thanks for the links to May’s architecture articles. That ravine home’s limestone facade is sure beautiful. The interior looks sparse undecorated, but Mays paints a better picture of how the house is lived in.

  • Terri

    John,
    Thanks for the link to Egan’s NY Times article. He draws a very thought-provoking conclusion. In BC we’ve had a freeze on developing agricultural land since the 1970s,known as the Agricultural Land Reserve, but control of its administration is at the municipal level, which can be a process involving favoritism among municipal leaders. Near our cities there has been pressure put in to free up different parcels for development. Often the same logic that Egan cites is what will prevail in a development-mad municipality.
    Here on the Saanich Peninsula, north of Victoria, we have had ongoing debates on developing argicultural land. Usually the developer’s plans are quashed (so far). The result has been that the largest town moved in the direction of building more density within the town area instead of spreading out. No huge highrises but many condos (some with storefront bottoms) and small townhouse complexes of four or six units. They’ve also tried to direct traffic from the main street and put walkways all along the seaside. There are no big-box stores, but many unique one-owner businesses that seem to survive (at least longer than goldfish!).

  • Tom E

    Hi, John Matthew and the House Brand team.

    WOW! I don’t know how I missed it before! I too, like Brad W found the House Brand projects this week. As much as I drool over those custom build modernist designed houses. The reality for me is more along the lines of what you have done with the 60’s type houses. I love what you have done in reworking the interior and exterior of these homes. I have been searching the internet for the past year for examples of 60’s vintage houses redone with a modernist exterior theme in black, grey tones. Hit the mother lode of great inspirational images with House Brand this week. Thanks! You may already know of these projects but here are the links to a couple of my other fav’s in grey scale
    http://www.dwell.com/articles/cooler-ranch.html
    http://www.3602apollo.com/
    http://www.dwell.com/articles/On-the-Level.html

    Cheers