The design concept behind Kirimoko can be traced back to a bike trip, taken by the tiny house ’s clients, Will and Jen, which required both of them to live completely out of pannier bags . Kirimoko, designed by Condon Scott Architects is a tiny home located in Wanaka, NZ, which has received several awards, including the New Zealand Institute of Architects 2019 Southern Architecture Award and a bronze award at the 2019 Designers Institute of New Zealand Best Awards, for the measures taken in the home’s Passive House approach during construction.
Condon Scott Architects utilized Passive House construction to bring Kirimoko to life. Passive House is a fundamental concept that provides indoor, thermal comfort by using energy sources of heat from inside the building. This construction concept requires solid, high-level insulation, and airtight design. Describing the details of the home’s build, Condon Scott says, “With a combination of Passive House measures and structural insulated panels, virtually no additional energy is required to maintain a consistent level of thermal comfort against the backdrop of the unforgiving Central Otago climate.” The builders installed structural insulated panels for the roof and walls of Kirimoko. SIPs are ideal for prefabricated structures because they maintain a solid foam center and are exceptionally airtight, requiring no thermal bridging, which is a form of heat transfer and a major source of energy loss.
The structure’s external cladding is showcased with a combination of larch weatherboards and asphalt shingles, providing a very subdued, and coy energy for the outside of the home. The seclusion of Kirimoko was achieved by keeping three-quarters of the building’s whole exterior closed, but entirely opening up one of the four facades to a floor-to-ceiling, glazed window. The window of the home’s north panel offers a full view of Kirimoko’s insides and was chosen specifically because, in the Southern hemisphere, sunlight comes from the north, so during the winter months, ample sunlight can be gained for indoor heat, but during the summer months, Kirimoko’s deep eaves help mitigate overheating. Additionally, inside Kirimoko, every corner and piece of furniture offers expansive pockets of storage so that despite the compact size and Passive House measurements, this home still buzzes with energy.
Designer: Condon Scott Architects
The decision to migrate to a 30-square-meter plot of land in Wanaka, New Zealand’s gateway to the Southern Alps, dawned on the couple after living happily for months on a cycling tour on just the bare essentials contained in their panniers.
However, even with both the small amount of land occupied by Kirimoko and the structure’s no-frills attitude, this little home still “packs a punch,” as Condon Scott puts it, and makes smart use of every nook and cranny.
While the decision to live with less stuff could certainly lend itself to a sustainable sort of lifestyle, the couple let their own experience on the road and their intuition guide the design process. According to the couple, living with less is not so much a frugal statement, as it is a natural tendency and this sentiment shines through the home’s construction process.
Situated within a busier, suburban neighborhood, privacy inside the insulated walls of Kirimoko was essential.
Miami Dade College is a Super Building
Located at Biscayne Boulevard and NE 5th Street in downtown Miami, the Campus Center for Miami Dade college looks like something out of OMA’s handbag. It is urban density turned into a superbuilding, combining apartments, offices, educational facilities, and a lot of space for art exhibition. But it is all Miami: the bravado somehow feels just what downtown Miami needs, and the design firm responsible, Oppenheim Architects , is located in Miami as well. Oppenheim’s website says the project’s estimated completion is 2012, although we think this is an incredibly optimistic considering the project that has a lot of speculative residential and commercial development.
Still, those dbox renderings really look sweet. We hope it happens.
Designer: Oppenheim Architects
Highly Linked Living
New York City is a prime example of urban densification. With so many annual newcomers and little room to expand, there’s really nowhere to go but UP! Urban Alloy is a proposed structure at the intersection of the LIRR and 7 trains that aims to bring the energy of Manhattan to the 4 other boroughs without disrupting existing land use. Lucky residents will not only find that they are near a major transportation hub, but living as part of it with a spectrum of personalized units to choose from!
The skin concept reflects a desire to optimize shading and day lighting performance on the surface of a complex volume. The surface of the towers transitions from a cylindrical to a triangular extrusion across its height in relation to the blend in floor heights. A composite of alloy or multiple flexible systems is required to optimize a skin in which every point has a unique environmental exposure. The system developed for this structure is deployed on a grid that follows the geometric directionality of the surface. At each intersection of the grid the normal of the surface is analyzed against its optimal solar shading and daylight transmitting requirements. An authored algorithm then generates vertical and horizontal fin profiles that blend with profiles at adjacent intersections. The result is an optimized system of decorative metal fins that are unique but fabricated with the logic and process described below.
The steel diagram structural system can efficiently be constructed with each unique member cut by an automated system. GPS systems can handle the geometric complexity of the overall structure via locating each member during the erection process. Cantilevers benefit from a favorable strength to weight ratio allowing large cantilevers and small footprints. With a high-recycled content and positive life cycle analysis the unitized curtain wall system will also be fabricated with rapid automated manufacturing processes.
Designer: Chad Kellogg & Matt Bowles
