Tue, 01 Mar 2005
Country House
 Dominic Bradbury,
New Country House,
Laurence King
Urban people all over the world often think that they'd like to
escape, at least for a while. The Net even makes it possible for
some professions to stay pretty much where they like and still be
able to get necessary work done. So, if you had a chance, what would you
build?
This book starts with a survey of what people have done over the ages:
from Blenheim Palace to Thoreau's hut at Walden Pond. It points out that
while people currently, in a place like the Hamptons, build mock-this and
mock-that at a rate of two to one to modernist structures, there is a
growing body of original work. This work is mostly more inspired by
Thoreau and also modern thought on environmental topics -- such as low
use of resources, both in building and sustainability.
 The Thoreau inspiration has to do with the buildings being more a part
of their surroundings than being a social statement of the importance of
their owners (though they do, of course, make a statement) and the idiom
is mostly Modernism.
After the survey come the various houses selected and they are split
into Organic, Vernacular, New Modern, and Experimental. Architecture geeks
will have seen some of them such as the Berman House by Harry Seidler, Casa de
Blas, and Okada's house on Mt. Fuji but most will be new.
In the Experimental section is a house by Shigeru Ban which uses polycarbonate
as an outer layer, white fireproofed polyethylene "noodles" as a second
layer, and removable (for cleaning) white nylon as a third layer. As one
goes through the book there are quite a few scalable ideas regarding
construction and design.
The book is nicely produced and laid out with lots of illustrations
and should provide food for thought for people thinking about doing
something sometime.
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pre Dec 04 reviews are here
