Featured Architects of the Week: Anderson Anderson Architecture
Happy December! Hope everyone’s having a good kick off to what will be a busy month for many of us. Where I live we were supposed to get snow this morning. I’m in Southwest Washington and didn’t believe the rumors and so far I’m right. Good news for me because I’m not the biggest snow fan — although beautiful houses do tend to look especially lovely dusted in white; we’ll absolutely be looking at some examples of snowy homes this month. I have one home in particular that I’ve been saving and saving. I’m pretty excited that December is here so I can show it.
In any case, we should get December going with a little Anderson Anderson Architecture. Anderson Anderson Architecture is a slick company with unique award winning designs. This firm has built extensively in the Pacific Northwest (cool) but also in Japan and other areas.
What’s funny is that I’ve been a fan of both The Chameleon House and Anderson Anderson Architects for a good long while, yet just recently found out that they built The Chameleon House. What the… I keep trying to figure out how I missed this. I need to pay attention.
The Chameleon House is so beautiful and just breathtaking to see.
This tower of a house offers views of Lake Michigan and the rest of the landscape and bonus, this home left the land alone for the most part. Some may think it looks cold but it’s really an offbeat wonder. This house might almost appear to assault the land but yet, it doesn’t — it comes off as belonging to the space it occupies. The designer worked very hard to minimize the feeling of intrusion a home like this might inspire. Take a look at what they did…
“To help mask the scale and house program window requirements of the structure, the building is wrapped in a skirting wall of recycled translucent polyethelene slats, standing two feet out from the galvanized sheet metal cladding of the wall surface, on aluminum frames that serve also as window washing platforms and emergency exit structures. The translucent polyethylene material set out over the dully reflective wall cladding is chosen for its ability to gather the light and color of its landscape, dissolving the finely shadowed and inexplicably haloed structure into the seasonal color cycle of snow and ice and black twig tracery; pale pink blossom clouds; pollen green leaf and grass; golden straw and vivid foliage.”
They pulled this off seamlessly in my opinion.
Living space…
If you’re interested, there’s a book on their designs; Anderson Anderson: Architecture and Construction featuring 25 projects. As our featured architects this week I’ll be showing one or two others of their pieces but the Chameleon House may be my favorite.
Coming up in December; snowy homes, Lifestyles Channel events, an Offbeat Homes contest for people who love reading about homes and or seeing some killer eye candy, Offbeat New Years resolutions, and more so stay tuned.
Tags: anderson_anderson, Architects, architecture, award_winning_designs, chameleon-house, offbeat-homes, pacific_northwest, southwest_washingtonRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Architects, Art, Eccentricities, Featured Architect of the Week
3 opinions for Featured Architects of the Week: Anderson Anderson Architecture
marye
Dec 1, 2007 at 4:27 pm
that is cool. I am not big on the ultra modern design on the interior though..but the way it fits the landscape…
perfect.
Jennifer Chait
Dec 1, 2007 at 8:43 pm
I don’t love the interior either; I did want to show the warmer side. However, for a home that looks sort of industrial at first glance is terribly fitting with the landscape — it’s so odd.
Featured Architect of the Week: Anderson Anderson Architecture
Dec 5, 2007 at 8:31 am
[…] in the week we looked at the amazing Chameleon House by Anderson Anderson Architecture. Today we’re going to see residential work with two homes […]
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