Architecture pt. 2

Welp, the summer is over and the tree house is pretty much finished. I've totally neglected this whole blog thingo, so I'd like to apologize to my one devoted reader, my wife. In my last post I rambled about the beginings of an architectural design project. I explained how we obtained the job, and some of the groundwork we laid before designing. The biggest of which was our research. Chase and I spent hours surfing the web and scouring the library for pictures of treehouses, and tips on how to build them. We found a plethora of poorly designed ultra-conservative treehouses, helping us better understand what we didn't want design. We began to realize that a treehouse can be taken as far as the designer and client are willing, and that the only restrictions are the preconcieved notions of both and the monetary restrictions of the client. Luckily, our client was very flexible in both areas. After compiling our research, we began discussing the idea of "hobbit architecture". We talked about how hobbits live in the ground, and how their houses are disguised and hidden. It is also very difficult to ascertain what the floorplan of the house is from the exterior manifestation of windows and the round door, creating a mystery regarding the contents of the space. We also talked about how they are secretive creatures, desiring to remain solitary from the rest of the world and maintaining privacy even from their own neighbors. As we discussed we began to realize what a hobbit is, rather than where a hobbit lives. This began to form into the concept that guided our design. We didn't feel that a simple 4 walled hut with a pointy gable roof would be "hobbit" architecture, but we wanted to develop it into something more. We began by experimenting with various structures and shapes, eventually coming to the conclusion that we wanted to use simple boxes, but in a way that they wouldn't look like squares from the outside. We talked with Pam about the size of the sturcture, and what it's future uses would be, helping us to determine what scale the boxes needed to be. She wanted 6 teenage girls to be able to comfortably sleep on the floor, so we began finding a floor size that would comfortably fit the girls. We then began looking at what size would most effectively utilize standard materials. A full sheet of plywood is 8' x 4', so we wanted to find a way to make as few cuts as possible while using as few sheets as possible (cuts=time=$). We then started talking about the secret features that we could add to make the environment secretive much like the burrow of a hobbit. We came up with a number of ideas, many of which were incorporated in our design. We prepared our initial design proposal and met with two University of Utah Architecture professors, Mira Locher and Ryan Smith. They gave us new insights and helped us approach some of the issues we were faceing. We then went and proposed our design to the Coveys. We were quite nervous, but it went well. In the next installment I'll talk about construction. In the meantime, Caitlin has commanded me to post a link to a slideshow Chase made of the Treehouse. http://www.flickr.com/photos/41027599@N03/show/ Enjoy!