We love the tree supergraphic that Andrew Maynard Architects used in their renovation of Tattoo House. The screening adds privacy, softens the home's modern lines in a neighborhood of traditional houses, reflects heat and glare, and creates lovely, ever-changing shadows. The stickers are composed of images taken in a local park -- the happy result of a requirement that second-story spaces have 75% opacity.
Love this! It reminds me of the shadows of trees cast by the setting sun on my frosted window panes. That being said... the heating/cooling billls for this house must be appalling.
view hejiranyc's profile
wow, what a really charming idea. it looks like they are living in a shadowbox~ very inventive!
view besendones's profile
While there are some really beautiful elements to that home, it strikes me a bit odd in a couple of ways:
-They boast about using plastic stickers to achieve 75% opacity.......on gigantic curtain walls. This requirement could have probably been done much less expensively with simply less glazing in the first place. But, I suppose that doesn't make for such nice photos (or media attention).
-The second issue is that of simulacra: pasting STICKERS of trees to mitigate the sun's rays... instead of planting some of the REAL things on that lot that happens to be completely devoid of life. Trees can't be any more expensive than those stickers, and would provide oxygen, filter pollution, help with drainage, provide animal shelter, etc. But for whatever reason, a huge white sticker in the window gets all the awards.
Nice.
view slantsix's profile
I think it is stunning. If only the taste level of the US was this current (instead of boring vernacular McMansions).
Slantsix, If they had smaller windows and real trees, it wouldn't stand out as special and unusual would it? I think you're missing the point.
view Devyn's profile
So the point of residential architecture is to be special and unusual? What about comfort? Concerns about environmental damage? (Glass and aluminum have very high rates of embodied energy, and must be shipped to site, etc.)
I think this is one major problem with the state of architecture today - architects creating buildings so they'll look great in a magazine, and that's about it.
There's no doubt that the architects of this home have a lot of talent and do some great work..... but this is what happens when designers take themselves too seriously: installing stickers of trees instead of the real thing, for the sake of some media attention. Really, think about it - this wasn't experimental or creative, it's just done at a large scale. I'm pretty sure everybody knew that putting stickers on windows would make them opaque. It's interesting, but hardly groundbreaking and actually seems to cause more problems than it solves.
view slantsix's profile