Walk a forest with your building design in mind and select individual trees to harvest for your home. Each tree is chosen both for its structural and design integrity and for the effect that its removal will have on the forest left standing around it. Often the selection will be based as much on thinning an overcrowded stand or managing an invasive species as it will on that tree being the nearest with a 10 inch diameter trunk.
When architect Karl Wanaselja built his home in Berkeley, California the junkyard became his urban forest for materials. For months he visited one of three local yards looking for car roofs and Dodge Caravan side windows. The windows became awnings and the roofs became siding for the top floor of his home. Wanaselja designed the home with his partner (in business and life) Cate Leger. They liked the look of the old cars, but they also believe firmly that reusing trumps recycling. They reused more than just cars to build their home. The lower half is sided in poplar bark, a waste product of the North Caroline furniture industry. Exterior wood is salvaged redwood and the fences and windowsills are on their second life.
Because they wanted to blend into the neighborhood as much as possible, Wanaselja and Leger played with perspective to create a home that looks small on the outside, but feels big on the inside. The home is only 14 feet wide on the ends, and it pitches forward and pinches in at the ends so from the street the home looks small. And it is just 1,140 square feet- more than half the U.S. average- and only 700 square feet on the ground floor. "It's kind of like Dr. Who's TARDIS. He's got this little phone booth, he goes in and then it's a giant space inside."
In this video, Wanaselja and Leger give us a tour of their home, their car part shed and their shipping container architecture studio in the backyard. For more details about the house see: lwarc.com
The awnings are fabricated from junked Dodge Caravan side windows. Once
advertised as “America’s best selling minivan”, now a common item in
junk yards. lwarc.com
The Complex, Drop City, 1967. An abandoned hippie commune made of old cars. www.museomagazine.com
Ideas for furnishings... Made from parts of the AC Cobra 427. www.la-ds.com
Walk a forest with your building design in mind and select individual trees to harvest for your home. Each tree is chosen both for its structural and design integrity and for the effect that its removal will have on the forest left standing around it. Often the selection will be based as much on thinning an overcrowded stand or managing an invasive species as it will on that tree being the nearest with a 10 inch diameter trunk.
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Reply #1 on : Fri September 28, 2012, 06:06:49