From Hometta’s press release:
This summer, modern home-buyers will gain unprecedented access to design quality with the debut of Hometta, a modern home plan company offering modest, green home designs from internationally recognized architecture studios. Entirely Web-based, Hometta is on a mission to make great design accessible and affordable to a large cross-section of prospective homeowners. Along with home plans, Hometta will offer a complete array of educational resources to empower subscribers throughout the home-building process.

Hometta is an international collective of designers, architects, builders, writers and editors who have banded together to improve the way residential architecture is designed and delivered today. The company was founded by Mark Johnson, a Houston-based green home builder, and his frequent collaborator Andrew McFarland, a Houston modern architect.

We think it’s a tragedy that 98 percent of American home-buyers cannot afford the services of an architect” says Johnson. “Our singular purpose is to improve the design quality of single family houses being built today.

Johnson and McFarland enlisted four “core” architects, all known for highly innovative work, to establish the vision for Hometta’s development. The core architects—James Evans, Dawn Finley, Brett Zamore and Blair Satterfield—in turn recruited the more than 20 talented firms who will contribute designs at Hometta’s launch.

As someone who believes that architecture’s responsibility to society begins with the dwelling, I am very happy to be associated with Hometta,” says Wes Jones, principal of Los Angeles-based Jones, Partners: Architecture. “Hometta takes the mystery out of building a new home. By combining a transparent process with access to a large pool of talented architects, Hometta makes good modern home design available, without risk or complication, to folks who might never have considered real architecture to be an option.

An Uncompromising Vision

Hometta’s plans adhere to a prescribed set of criteria, uniquely interpreted by each studio:

• Modern: The homes are stunningly modern, offering all the design, livability and ingenuity of a custom home.
• Small: Capped at 2,500 square feet, the homes are smaller than the national average. Their size makes them more affordable and efficient, creating a new market between large, custom houses and mass-produced tract homes. Smaller homes also supplement and support, rather than compete with, the architects’ core businesses.
• Sustainable: By virtue of their smaller size, the homes will use less energy and produce less waste. They will employ sustainable design methods and materials, including hydronic heating and cooling, passive ventilation, and planted or solar-paneled “sides,” that boost efficiency and energy performance without adding excessive cost.

Web-based Tools

Visitors to Hometta.com will be able to view all home plan design renderings, as well as original editorial content: professionally produced audio slideshow and video podcasts, educational articles, and a blog with exclusive content from Hometta contributing architects. Web-based tools will be accessible by subscription. The Design Subscription ($9.95 per year) gives access to the interactive, professionally edited Construction Guide, with its detailed resources and advice on the entire home-building process. The Build Subscription ($99.95/year or $19.95/month) allows users to review all the builder plan sets and receive guest logins for their selected builder(s). The actual plans range in cost from $1195 for a studio-sized house to $3195 for a three-bedroom.

Architects Contributing Plans

The following firms are partner studios that will contribute home plans for Hometta’s launch:
Barry Price Architecture Woodstock, NY
Borden Partnership Los Angeles
Brett Zamore Design Houston
Collaborative Designworks Houston
davidclovers Hong Kong
Dufner Heighes New York, NY
FAR frohn&rojas Los Angeles / Cologne, Germany / Santiago, Chile
Garofalo Architects Chicago
Guthrie+Buresh Architects Ann Arbor, MI
HouMinn Practice Houston, TX / Minneapolis, MN
Interloop—Architecture Houston, TX
Jones, Partners: Architecture Los Angeles, CA
Karl Wallick Cincinnati, OH
Keith Krumwiede New York / Los Angeles
Kiel Moe Boston
KRDB Austin, TX
MANIFOLD.ArchitectureStudio Brooklyn, NY / Mainze, Germany
Mike Jacobs Architecture Brooklyn, NY / Los Angeles
Min | Day San Francisco / Omaha, NE
over,under inc. Boston
Project_ Brooklyn, NY
Roger Sherman Architecture Santa Monica, CA
Studio Terpeluk San Francisco
WEATHERS Chicago
Zoka Zola Chicago

For more info about Hometta visit their blog.

My friend Daniel yesterday showed me this documentary produced by Autodesk in partnership with PBS, narrated by Brad Pitt, about the work headed by Bogotá’s ex-mayor Enrique Peñalosa, making the city one of the most sustainable in the world by implementing innovative ideas like the “TransMilenio” bus system, and causing crime rate to be reduced by 70% in only three years. Even though the documentary omits other important changes implemented by Mr. Peñalosa (along with other mayor’s before and after him), that greatly improved the life of Bogotá’s citizens and reduced environmental problems like the “pico y placa”, it is still a great eye opener. It is nice to see inspiring solutions coming from my country every once in a while. Watch the documentary after the break.

Multi-disciplinary design firm Claesson Koivisto Rune sent me these images and description of their No. 5 House in Nacka, Sweden. As a minimalist I love everything about this house—the shape, the layout, the choice in furniture, etc., etc. Check out the rest of the images and what the architects had to say about this project after the break.

The starting point for this house for a graphic designer (he designed the No. 5 sign) and his family was a geometric volume where the inside was as important as the outside. If you wish – an inverted volume. A box with a series of openings, or a space with a series of closures.

A grid was established that was based on standardised dimensions for building materials. The grid was then superimposed on the box. From this grid was created the basic room structure. Each room then had one of it’s four sides completely glazed. The result contained three bedrooms and one larger living/dining space with kitchen. The bedrooms are basically open towards one cardinal point each, leaving one opening in each façade. So even though the bedrooms are small the surrounding landscape is always a part of the space, making the sense vast rather than small. The bathroom, which has no wall opening, has a roof window instead. There is a glazed doorway from the living area to a partially walled terrace, creating an outdoor room that is open to the sky at one end and open to the view at the other.

—Claesson Koivisto Rune Arkitektkontor AB

Carolina Bueno from Triptyque sent me images and information about another one of their amazing projects, an apartment built for Houssein Jarouche in São Paulo, Brazil. The kitchen and bathroom are my favourites, but the rest is just as spectacular. Here’s what the architects had to say about this project: (more images and details after the break)

Dominique Gonzales-Foerster defined the tropical identity as “something organic, intense, sensorial, vegetal, pulsating, immature, out of control”. These concepts guided the project for this apartment. This project embodies the idea of global design—it’s a completely artistic project. A contemporaneous and singular architectural plan is established from the layout to the faucets.

The 300 square feet apartment was planned as a great gallery with aligned rooms without an established function. The goal was to stimulate unexpected occupations and give a certain gratuité to the spaces. The main concept was to work the space as whole unit, divided in smaller rooms.

“The first step was to clear the space and observe the potentials. The second step was to establish a new hierarchy that privileges the continuity of spaces. The third, to search and create a language of our own”, say the Triptyques.

The greatest challenge to the architects was to make sure that this continuity was obtained without interfering in the richness of internal spaces. The apartment structure was opened to its maximum in order to clear the plan, where a dialog between the bookcase, the kitchen and the galleries is set.

The gallery is marked by integrated essential elements, such as closets, bathtub, bed, kitchen, etc.—all of them treated in a minimalist way—rough concrete, demolition wooden floors, stainless steel, white walls, etc.—giving the furniture and art pieces space to be moved around.

A monumental structure (the bookcase) embraces the technical core of the building (elevators and stairs). It presents itself in every room and defines the whole project: through the bookcase is made the entrance to the apartment, like walking into a cave, through the dark towards the light.

The kitchen is a great concrete stone—from where fire arises—that stands in the center of the project. It is the element of encountering and articulation and is placed in the central position, speaking directly to the great structure (the bookcase).

The furniture – pieces of international design collections—was chosen with the client’s participation. The choice was leaded by the configuration of spaces, considering as priority the rooms’ versatility and the possibility of eventual layout changes.

White is the main color used. In the gallery, the white is accompanied by the natural colors of the other materials—concrete, wood and stainless steel—and in the bedroom it is side by side with dark–grey elements, giving it a strong and intimate feel.

Inside, strong elements are confronted, resulting in a poetic conversation. The use of wooden floors, for example, is very expressive: the treated demolition wood and its irregular pieces juxtaposes with the white lacquered bookcase. The artificial makes visual contrast with the rough. In the same way, the kitchen’s concrete speaks to the stainless steel from the drawers and doors.

Therefore, the apartment offers a great variety of points of view, sequences, accidents and movements. The result is extraordinary and surprising – the visual relation created with the loose volumes and the organic omnipresence of the Treme-Treme leads to a unique architectural experience.

São Paulo based architectural firm Triptyque has sent me images and information about the project they completed for brazilian advertising agency “Loducca“. The new headquarters building is located on Colombia Street, number 325 on São Paulo, Brazil. Image gallery after the break.

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Triptyque describes the project as follows:

Located in the neighborhood of “Jardins” – which presently experiences radical changes – and in an avenue with busy traffic, the building faced north emerges as a strong and organic ‘incarnation’ of this tropical city – such as noise and solar radiation – and takes form by absorbing these aggressions. Though it is imponent, the construction isn’t autonomous, nor blind or deaf – it is born from its local energy and uses that to give the environment new meanings, in a boomerang-like effect.

The impossible transparency between building and street is build through the deconstruction of the façade: the organic and fluid brise-soleil membrane deforms itself under the effect of the traffic movements. It protects the building from the sun and works in two other very contrasting ways: it lets the public eyes inside and – at the same time – filters theses eyes, giving the users certain privacy.

The construction stares at the city and reveals its interiors delicately through various overlaid layers: the glass gates, the brise-soleil and the frontal translucent glazing connect the external to the internal visually. Meanwhile, in the back façade double opaque and single translucent glazing alternate in an intriguing visual game, creating luminosity and reinforcing the contact between inside and outside.

This visual and sensorial continuity reflects in a strong and troubled relationship – the public eye and the privacy of the user. The internal life of the project is accompanied by the observer. A concrete frame panel is connected to the ‘façade-membrane’, and complements these affairs, connecting the interior and exterior environments.

The three floors are structured by a strong vertical element – the concrete staircase. Its folded geometry connects all internal rooms, from the parking lot to the solarium at the top floor – an infinite deck that opens up to the trees around the building – what helps it merge with its surroundings.

More information about this project including 3D Drawings on the project’s microsite

Image Gallery