John Brown is the editor of theslowhome.com and the founder of the Slow Home Movement. He is a registered architect, real estate broker and Professor of Architecture at the University of Calgary.
In this installment of the Slow Home Report we look at two new projects, House on Last Mountain Lake by Smith & Plosz and Elevator Bay House by Jason-Emery Groens. Also featured is an interesting article by Peter Goodman of the New York Times.
The need for affordable living space and the desire to physically manifest modern architectural ideas are what propelled us to create the Elevator Bay House in Kingston. A home should be an investment in a quality of life, concern itself with the history of a place, cultivate a site and ultimately speak to the community at large. Our house speaks directly to the recent changes from heavy/medium industrial land use along the Great Lakes Shore to residential infill.
In the land of the center-hall Colonial, local architect Mark McInturff is a modernist, committed to soaring open spaces, clean lines, large expanses of glass and buildings that fit into -- rather than fight with -- the land around them. In some cases, that means marrying a traditional home to a contemporary addition....
In the first of two interviews, architect Dick van Gameren talks about the early history of his firm and the importance of an open approach to architecture.
Whimsical. It was the least loaded word I'd heard critics muster for "Old Downtown" Windsor, which is not old in any sense of the word; it is the brand-new brainchild of its developer, Orrin Thiessen, and it has whimsy to spare.
Located 60 miles north of San Francisco off Hwy. 101, Windsor is a town of some 22,000 residents. Its downtown core, which dated from the 1870s, had deteriorated in the last century into a motley collection of scarred buildings riddled with gang activity. "It looked like it belonged in Bosnia," one long time resident told me....
House on Last Mountain Lake by Laura Plosz & Troy Smith
Jun 30, 2008
The House on Last Mountain Lake by Laura Plosz & Troy Smith is a minimal single family project located in the rugged Qu’Appelle Valley system of southern Saskatchewan.
Suddenly, the economics of American suburban life are under assault as skyrocketing energy prices inflate the costs of reaching, heating and cooling homes on the distant edges of metropolitan areas.
Just off Singing Hills Road, in one of hundreds of two-story homes dotting a former cattle ranch beyond the southern fringes of Denver, Phil Boyle and his family openly wonder if they will have to move close to town to get some relief....
We
believe that our homes and neighborhoods should be healthy, vibrant places that uplift the spirit and gracefully fit our needs. We call for an end to poor construction, bad design, misleading marketing, unfair lending practices and environmental neglect in the housing industry. We acknowledge our collective responsibility to create Good, Close, Light places to live that leave a positive legacy for future generations.
is an international movement devoted to bringing good design into real life. It takes its name from the slow food movement which arose as a reaction to the processed food industry. The sprawl of cookie cutter housing that surrounds us is like fast food - standardized, homogenous, and wasteful. It contributes to a too fast life that is bad for us, our cities, and the environment. In the same way that slow food raises awareness of the food we eat and how these choices affect our lives, Slow Home provides design focused information to empower each of us to take more control of our homes and improve the quality of where and how we live.
is an international movement devoted to bringing good design into real life. It takes its name from the slow food movement which arose as a reaction to the processed food industry. The sprawl of cookie cutter housing that surrounds us is like fast food - standardized, homogenous, and wasteful. It contributes to a too fast life that is bad for us, our cities, and the environment. In the same way that slow food raises awareness of the food we eat and how these choices affect our lives, Slow Home provides design focused information to empower each of us to take more control of our homes and improve the quality of where and how we live.
