Tag Archives: family home

This prefab cabin located in the snowy slopes of Sweden is a family’s winter home!

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Villa Timmerman is a blackened timber cabin located in Sweden, designed by husband and wife duo Andreas Lyckefors and Josefine Wikholm.

Sweden-based architecture studio Bornstein Lyckefors recently finished work on an intricate winter getaway situated in the picturesque suburbs of Askim in Sweden’s Gothenburg Municipality. Devised and constructed by Bornstein Lyckefors founders and husband and wife team, Andreas Lyckefors and Josefine Wikholm, Villa Timmerman is a cozy winter prefabricated cabin, ideal for those winter months when you want to immerse your every sense in all the season has to offer.

Designer: Bornstein Lyckefors

Askin is known as a commercial fishing hub, so it makes sense that Villa Timmerman’s location was chosen so that it would overlook the sea below. Located on the southeast side of a gradual slope, Villa Timmerman perches above snow-covered valleys as a semi-detached house that functions as the couple’s family base.

Defined by windows covered by over crossed grilles that form the shapes of diamonds and vertical beams, Villa Timmerman draws in ample sunlight from each side to create beautiful lattice shadows inside. The architects also note that “The grid was an experiment that proved to work well as extra protection against solar radiation on the façade and as a protective layer against the drifting rain on the west coast.”

The villa’s location was in fact chosen so that sun would enter the house from at least one side at all hours of the day so that extra protection was necessary. Explaining this further, the architects at Bornstein Lyckefors describe,

“It was a challenge to create a semi-detached house with equal qualities at both ends, as they naturally face different directions. We had to study the local conditions carefully and take into account weather, views, sun, evening sun, contact with the street and neighbors. In the end, the house could be arranged so that both parts of the house get morning, noon, and evening sun. There is always sun on one terrace or balcony during the bright part of the day.”

Achieved through a process called wood tarring, the villa’s blackened timber exterior complements the home’s interior, which is characterized by bright, natural wood walls. Inside, accents of veneers and ash elements give the staircase and furniture pieces some personality.

The brightening quality of the home’s interior is amplified by the open-plan layout and expansive windows that flow from the home’s floor to its double-height ceiling. Dissolving the barrier between the outdoors and the home’s warm interior, the villa, and its windows were specifically configured to maximize the amount of sunlight to enter the home during the day.

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This geometric family home is brightened up with arches, round windows and terrace gardens!

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Multigenerational family homes are typically devoted to creating a lot of space, privacy, and versatility. Sometimes each floor is devoted to each generation– grandma might get the ground floor, while the penthouse is left for the youngest generation, or vice versa. Located on the VIP island of the Hoa Xuan district in Da Nang, Vietnam, a multigenerational family residence rises above and between the Cam Le and Do Toa rivers, housing three generations in its four-story brick and concrete home.

Designed and constructed by AD9 Architects, the four-story home, dubbed Da Nang House, comprises 500m2 and functions as a living space as well as a greeting card shop. The ground floor, or front of the Da Nang House operates as a handmade greeting card shop while the succeeding floors house a retired couple, their two children, and grandmother. Da Nang House was designed as a residence devoted to balance and airflow. Inside, the home’s concrete frame remains unadorned, fusing the industrial look of the concrete walls with the polished wooden accents that make up the doors and cabinetry. Optic white facades and staircases course throughout the residence to merge with the bountiful green garden spaces that are plotted inside and outside the home.

AD9 wanted to build a home that interacted with the surrounding climate and landscape of Hoa Xuan, which resulted in integrating plenty of open spaces like terraces and exposed walkways, as well as large rotund windows into the home. By dissolving the boundaries between interior and exterior spaces throughout the home, Da Nang House benefits from a great deal of natural air ventilation as well as sunlight, enhancing the home’s garden spaces and bright interior design elements. Dressed in tough building parts like baked brick and rustic stones, most of the construction materials used were sourced locally and incorporated onsite.

Designer: AD9 Architects

Built from concrete and brick, Da Nang House features bountiful garden spaces to liven up the family home.

Going inside, the residence warms up the concrete facade with wooden interior accents and glass panels.

The front of the home operates as a handmade greeting card storefront.

Bright, optic white painted walls absorb most of the natural sunlight that drenches the rooms inside Da Nang House.

Natural wood accents animate rooms such as the dining room, where dynamic energy is mostly always present.

The home’s library and living area face a large window that soaks the subdued furniture and white ceilings in bright sunlight.

Darker wood accents fill the bedrooms and quiet areas throughout the home, creating a cozy ambiance in an otherwise bright interior.

This net-zero home produces no waste or carbon – aesthetics & sustainability co-existing in architecture!

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Architects and designers all over the world are trying their best to incorporate sustainability in their work. Biodegradable, carbon-neutral, eco-friendly, etc. are not just trends or buzzwords, these imply that we may have potential solutions to reduce the load on our planet and slow down the climate crisis. Sustainable structures create an impact on an ‘architectural’ scale and that is why I am fascinated by Baboolal, a net-zero home that produces no waste or carbon. Baboolals stay in North Carolina and they realized that their entire community lives in the exact same cookie-cutter houses that consume excess energy and they knew they wanted to create change by setting an example.

Architect Arielle Condoret Schechter was up to the challenge of designing their dream net-zero home. The home had to be well-insulated, air-tight, and energy-efficient because to reach a net-zero energy bill, the structure has to produce as much energy as it consumes.  Therefore Babool house features a photovoltaic array on the roof to generates solar power. It is also covered with a white cool-roof membrane and the windows are triple-glazed and protected with deep roof overhangs to prevent energy loss.

The Babool house also had to be a functional place for the parents, children, and their pets along with being sustainable. The core is an open, airy, and inviting central common family area while all of them have their own private bedrooms to retreat to. The spacious floor plan includes a gourmet kitchen, elaborate dining, and living areas, as well as deck access across the back of the house. It also has a study/music room, laundry room, pantry, and a two-car garage. To bring the outside scenic landscape in, the architect added operable glass doors to reduce energy loss and increase the visual spaciousness. The design encompasses a progression: one enters the house from the south which opens up into the main living space looking out into the natural views in the north creating a powerful indoor-outdoor connection.

“Our driving concept for the Baboolal residence was the Japanese principle of ‘Shakkei’ – borrowed landscape or scenery. The north side of their property is adjacent to a gorgeous grassy meadow which is part of a neighbor’s property. This north side is the dominant view from the Baboolal residence, so we are ‘borrowing’ this view. Borrowing the landscape is not just a Japanese design principle, but also one used prominently in British landscape design since the 1700s,” said Schechter. The home’s layout seamlessly flows from one zone to another. The modern aesthetic and net-zero strategies combine to make the Baboolal home beautiful, energy-efficient, sustainable, and carbon-free!

Designer: Arielle Condoret Schechter

A giant blue slide sits in the middle of this modern family home!

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Who said slides were only for kids? Reflect Architecture answered the calls of all us adults who still love the thrill of going down a slide and no longer have to be embarrassed about it. The team renovated a house for a young family living in Toronto, Canada, by brightening its otherwise minimal interiors with a pale blue slide that runs in the center of the structure. It is a skill to have a slide in a family home without taking away from the grown-up aesthetic. This is the only way I would like to leave the home for work or come down for breakfast!

The renovated house is named Walker and the updated layout aimed to create lighter, open spaces that better serve the family’s lifestyle while pro more bonding and playtime. At the heart of the house is the children’s twisting blue slide which connects the basement level to the ground floor. It was included to liven-up the lower-level, bring in natural light to the space, and make it “not basement like”. The parents are entrepreneurs in the health and wellness space so it was important to have a feature in the house that encouraged better mental and physical health, therefore elements were picked to integrate play in their lives. “When I got the initial design brief, they noted wanting to keep the second floor as a separate unit to rent out and hence we combined the basement level with the lower level to create a single-dwelling for the family,” said the team.

The now brightened-up basement is where three children’s bedrooms are located with three bathrooms and a guest bedroom. The ground floor is where the couple gets their space with the master bedroom and ensuite. Common areas like the study kitchen, dining, and entertainment zone are also on the ground floor. The two floors are also connected via a folding wooden staircase next to the slide. This staircase is lined with a perforated-metal balustrade and lit by night lights integrated into the ceiling so nobody has to crawl up a slide – something we have all learned is basically a kid’s version of mission impossible. Windows were expanded and sliding doors were added to open up the house some more. The street-facing side of the lower level features metal panels, wooden louvers, and dark wood cladding that has been treated using the Japanese technique of ‘shou sugi ban’. Walker’s interiors showcase a simple and minimal material palette of light wooden textures, marble countertops, white walls with pops of color in cabinets, and of course the slide. The client wanted a “calming canvas to live their life on” and Reflect Architecture delivered!

Designer: Reflect Architecture