Tiny Texas Houses

tinytexashouses102206-017

Much has been written about McMansions and their generally detrimental effects upon the residential landscape, aestheticism, and most importantly the environment. With this in mind, it was most refreshing to stumble across Brad Kittel’s work at Tiny Texas Houses.

 

Kittel designs and build tiny houses – the largest so far being about 4 x 9 metres – through ‘Salvage Building’. Owners can choose from an enormous supply of salvaged doors, beams, and other fittings, to create a perfect tiny dwelling. They are then trucked from Texas to the owner’s property.

 

Often the tiny houses go over several storeys and incorporate lofts, higher levels and porches. While they are seriously tiny (although no worse than many student apartments in Melbourne!) they look gloriously cosy and seem to have everything you’d need.

 

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times about the trend away from larger-than-life living. 

Filed under: design

The wonders of tape – ‘Forty-Eight’ by Rebecca Ward

b13 3

I recently stumbled upon the website of Rebecca Ward — Rebecca is an artist from down town Austin, Texas who has exhibited a number of creative, linear works, by utilising the original beams, columns and angles of any given space, usually strung together with a very colourful palette of plain old tape. “I have always been drawn to its unique textural qualities… When using tape, rather than leaving evenly-placed two-dimensional lines upon a wall, I expand upon the material’s sculptural potential and bring these installations into a third dimension.” Her installations are ‘inherently architectural,’ and all ‘site-specific’ No two exhibits are the same. Each site goes through a series of detailed measurements before each installation to properly assess the use of patterns and shapes. “Ideally these patterns are numerically symmetrical or somehow numerically balanced, producing a dialogue between line and space.”

I Got in touch with Rebecca to find out more about an exhibit in Houston Texas — a splash of colour down an otherwise ordinary staircase.

The piece is named ‘forty-eight’ and was commissioned by Box 13 artspace

I soon learnt that the colourful display was not in anyway random, but instead was loosely based on the age old concept of the golden rectangle

Here are Rebecca’s thoughts on the installation.

“When I began investigating the Box13 space, I wanted to plan my installation according to the laws of the golden rectangle.The aerial view of the staircase seemed to have a shape that would work with the golden spiral. Ultimately, it was too difficult to make every piece of tape and every linear gesture adhere to the very specific laws of the logarithmic spiral, but I think the end result still has its basis (somehow and somewhere) in phi. I guess I kind’ve ended up making my own rules about balancing proportions in a rectangular space.”

A huge thanks to Rebecca for sharing her thoughts and work with us.

For more information and equally stunning installations visit..

Rebecca Ward

Filed under: architecture, art, design