Green Diary (January 18, 2010)
"Evoking the feeling of being in a tree house is exactly what the beautiful Wilkinson residence in Portland does. Located on a flag lot, the extraordinary house is brilliantly designed to perfectly blend with the natural landscape. A steep sloping grade provided the opportunity to bring the main level of the house into the tree canopy...."
The article is mostly photos: 10, including the one shown here.
And kudos to Green Diary, for including a link to the architect's portfolio page: "Wilkinson Residence." (Robert Harvey Oshatz, Architect)
This "swanky treehouse" is in Portland, Oregon. In that area, anyway: I don't know how many wooded lots there are in the city itself.
The article is brief, almost terse, but that photos make up for that. The Wilkinson Residence is a remarkable - and non-standard - house.
I think that calling it a "swanky treehouse" may have unintentionally revealed something about the houses of people who can afford to built a house that they want, rather than something that's closer to the 50th percentile.
These folks are doing what many of us did as kids: building a place of their own, for their own use, without too much consideration of what everybody else thinks.
I think that's great. And, as long as there isn't a sort of "more sustainable than thou" attitude of superiority over folks who don't have huge bankrolls (there isn't a breath of that in the Green Diary article), I have no problem with someone living in the sort of greenhouse Flash Gordon might have.
Related post:
- "Recycled House: Well, That's Cool"
(February 6, 2010)
I'm curious about the foundation... Underneath the cedar shingled wall, is that all poured concrete? It's a fantastic looking structure, that's for sure...
ReplyDeleteDan Wright,
ReplyDeleteThat's a very good question: The Green Diary essentially lifted the architect's description of the residence - and both emphasized the overall impression of the place more than materials. Apart from mentioning some of the finish.
Poured concrete - or pre-cast, although I think that's unlikely - seems the most reasonable guess at what the foundation is made of.