North Arrow Studio has accomplished a compact, corrugated steel accent dwelling unit in East Austin’s Chestnut neighbourhood that includes a {custom}, round pivot window that’s harking back to the spherical opening in a birdhouse.
Aptly named the Birdhouse, the 900-square foot (84-square metre) ADU shares a slim 5,900-square metre (550-square metre) lot with a 1939 single-storey home and three giant protected pecan timber.
North Arrow Studio’s principal architect Francisco Arredondo described the two-bedroom, two-bath home as “simplicity carried to the acute”.
“There’s simplicity within the footprint, the massing, and the fabric palette all through,” Arredondo mentioned. “Nevertheless it’s additionally a wise little home that makes me smile.”
The house was strategically positioned across the timber to create a courtyard between the principle home and the ADU whereas offering privateness for the separate residing quarters.
The L-shaped plan contains a bed room, toilet, kitchen and front room that includes a roll-up storage door on the bottom ground, all wrapped round an exterior pecan tree.
Upstairs, the principle suite sits throughout the vaulted ceiling of the double-gabled kind. 4 five-foot (1.5-metre) diameter circle home windows sit below every gable and use the encompassing tree cover for privateness.
“They create a resemblance to a conventional birdhouse and produce a way of caprice to the design,” the studio mentioned.
One of many custom-fabricated metal home windows serves because the required egress for the room.
“We started with a pivot design and labored our method in direction of a ultimate swing design that opened as much as the pecan tree’s cover,” the crew defined.
The rounded-window motif carries all through the home with miniature {custom} metal circle home windows.
“Strategically chosen partitions are curved to melt edges and draw you into the areas,” the studio mentioned. “Inside finishes are easy and restrained other than just a few accent partitions that give life to every room.”
The monotone ADU is wrapped in mild corrugated steel that “is a nod to the numerous steel sheds and accent buildings already discovered all through the neighborhood, however with a contemporary and playful twist”.
The mushy, rounded edges and impartial color complement the prevailing home and supply an accent alongside the alley, and the steel runs up the partitions and turns into the roof materials as nicely.
Within the courtyard, a curved polycarbonate wall brings mild into the hallway and creates a softly glowing, semi-transparent impact.
Corrugated steel was chosen for its sustainability and resilience because the envelope is 100 per cent recyclable, repels solar and warmth in Texas summers and is sturdy and low-maintenance, in line with the studio.
“Working with a decent price range and constrained footprint could be very useful in making a story for the design,” the studio mentioned. “The constraints start to information you and lend alternatives to be inventive with conventional supplies and areas in ways in which usually would not be thought of.”
In 2014, North Arrow Studio created a stilted house within the Texas Hill Nation that references Mies Van der Rohe’s glass Farnsworth Home.
The images is by Chase Daniel.
Challenge credit:
Builder, developer, proprietor: Brita Wallace, Digs ATX
Styling: Ben Newman Studios
