NYC Dream Home - Final Presentation Boards

I created presentation boards for this college project.  They are still at college this now, so I'll photograph them and post them shortly.

NYC Dream Home - Eco Chic Penthouse - CAD elevations

North rear isometric view - bedrooms and study

isometric view of south elevation  kitchen/dining/family

North elevation - bedrooms and study - fruit trees

Developing my skills in Vectorworks, I modelled my final layout in CAD and rendered the home.

Dream Home - Thinking about the interiors - inspiration and hand visualisations

I've started to think now that I have finalised the layout of my dream home, what the interiors are going to be used for and how they will look.
I have in mind using environmentally friendly materials and fittings wherever possible to contribute to this low emissions home.
I used a number of photographs based in NY as inspiration for colour schemes and materials to be used.  In this first photograph of NY, I loved the bright yellow against the dark grey/blue sky line and grey buildings. It was both combining sun and rain in the one picture.  As the kitchen/dining/family areas face south east, the use of dark colours would be OK as plenty of natural light coming in.  I love the sunniness of the yellow and its mood enhancer for starting the day.

Inspiration photo for family living area - Yellow cab in Grey NYC, yellow grey living room 

draft sketch of living area and manual 3D space planning

To scale - space planning 2D layout

sketch drawing of kitchen/dining area from inspirational photo above

Family area, dark with flashes of yellow

For the Bedrooms - again influenced by images of New York - I came up with the following schematics.

The boys love sport, so bedroom 2 and 3 on the plan have this in mind when thinking about their interior

2D layout of room and sketch drawing of bedroom 3

inspiration for bedroom 3

New York Skyline painting by Daniel "Danny O" O'Connor is made from recycled materials in his collage. Made from magazines, newspapers, scotch tape and drawings and then assembles them on old album records.
The New York Yankees are committed to helping to promote a sustainable environment and have implemented many green initiatives at Yankee Stadium.

2D and 3D visualisation for bedroom 2

inspiration for bedroom 2 - times square/graffiti/skateboards

For the study I chose the iconic 'I love NY' poster for inspiration for the room

inspiration for study

2D/3D visuals for room

For the Master bedroom, I loved a photograph of late autumn in central park, where the leaves on the trees are golden yellow and there is snow on the ground. this along with the iconic brick wall from loft interiors, inspired the look of the room.

inspiration for master bedroom

2D/3D visualisations of master bedroom

lastly for the formal lounge area, I used a painting of 'Brooklyn & Manhattan Bridges by Joan Farre to inspire the colour scheme and muted look of the room.

inspiration for lounge interior

2D/3D visualisations for lounge

Development floor plans for my 'Eco Chic' Penthouse, NYC

My proposed layout #1 for my dream home had the following criteria

# Kitchen with family dining area

# formal lounge

# family lounge/cinema/media room

# 3 en-suite bathrooms

# working office

# utility area

# outside kitchen and alfresco dining

# large terrace/garden for growing veg and raising chickens

I wanted the bedrooms to face north, particularly the kids rooms  so as not be affected with early morning sun rises.  Oppositionally the living areas - kitchen/dining/lounge have southerly aspects to maximise on natural daylight.  The kitchen is at the east of the building as I love to have breakfast to a rising sun, and the lounge is at the west to enjoy the sunsets at the end of the day.

Note book extract for # layout 1

2D floor plan for # layout 1

For my second development layout #2 sketch, I went for a more organic shape, thinking about being renewable and sustainable  I used the leaf shape created in an earlier development exercise to visual how this could be applied to a home.

layout #2 roof elevation - glazed spine, sedum gently sloped roof

In this layout, I moved the office area to be beside the master bedroom. I rearranged the chickens to be outside the kids bedrooms so they can be more involved with their care. I added east and west terraces for outside relaxation for different times of daylight sun.  I've also added a veg patch beside the kitchen for convenience.

2D layout #2

For layout #3 - inspired by the recycling nature of my dream home, I tried out a circular outlay for the penthouse. Adding fruit trees to the north terrace to add to the working garden theme of veg and chickens.

layout #3 elevation - circular (recyclable)

layout #3 - 2D floor plan

My fourth and final layout harks back to my favourite shape of the leaf design.  Following an exercise of mocking layout 2 in a sketch scale model I realised that some of the rooms where too small. therefore i have enlarged the bedrooms, dressing room and en-suites.

I've added a cinema zone into the family zone and a library to the office.

This space has been taken from the already large terrace areas.

I've made the south facing side of the building - kitchen/dining/family/lounge all have bi-folding doors to open up the living spaces - weather permitting.

The Master bedroom also has opening doors to an outside spa and relaxation area.

beds 2, 3 and study have large picture windows to maximise the northern light.

Final layout plan #4

Floor Plans for my 'Eco Chic' Penthouse

Hi there

Today I've been developing floor plans for my fantasy penthouse apartment. My initial thoughts were for the apartment to be inspired from the shape of a fresh green leave

- it has 3 ensuite bedrooms, a large open plan family/dining/kitchen, a formal southwest facing lounge and a wrap around deck for expanding the living space to encompass a spa area, vegetable plots, outside barbeque kitchen, chickens, dining area and sun lounge area.

The central hall way, is like the spine of a leave and would have a glazed roof, turning the hallway into a green house to grow flowers including my favourite flowers Orchids.  The private bedroom areas face north keeping them cool and dark. the public areas face south benefiting from both heat and light from the sun.  The kitchen is in the east taking advantage of the morning sun for breakfast, and the formal/socialising lounge is in the south west to take advantage of spectactular sunsets.

Using photoshop, I tried to transform the 2D floor plan into a 3D visual - giving an idea of the space of the apartment.

Downtown penthouse for $18,000,000 - any takers?

I've been checking out actual penthouses for sale in Manhatten, the location of my fantasy home.  On the New York Times Real Estate section today,http://realestate.nytimes.com/sales/detail/3187-1372629/Irving-Place-Apt-PH-DPLX-New-York-NY-10010
 there was an etour of a new development of apartments starting at a cool $18 million These apartments are in and around the Flatiron building area.

Have a dream along with me of what could be mine some day........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRi3xC-rfYI

Chicken coops

I've been researching chicken coops today to put on the large roof terrace of my 'fantasy' NY penthouse apartment.
I'm loving the Eglu chicken coops by Omlet (http://www.omlet.co.uk/homepage/homepage.php) - which look very funky indeed.
Also found out some very interesting facts about chickens
1. they lay an egg on average once a day
2. they can live to 15 years old
3. they can make great pets
4. chickens have personalities!!

I'm thinking now I wouldn't mind having some at home for real - they sound fab