AIA Dallas Modern Home Tour Notes – Part B
More on the tour, and my exciting notes.
3. Doors
This should be probably under furnishings but one of the key aspects of these homes, I noticed was the doors. We had the kind that I expected with the industrial accouterments on rollers and kind of an odd feature in a house that was not at all industrial. But to each their own. However, a “trend” I noticed was the wide doors. In all flavors, glass, tinted, pine and others. It really added a sense of “fantasy” when you walk in and feel dwarfed but in a good way. GO Doors.
4. Bathrooms
Ahhhh I love bathrooms and one of the best things of modern homes is bathrooms in my estimation. Almost always you have interesting textures, use of light and inventive thinking in what is a traditionally tightly confined space. That could describe most modern homes really but man, this tour had lots of fantastic bathrooms. One of my favorite was with the an enclosed shower with a tub end to end in the shower. What a great concept. The back wall was glass with light tinting so you couldn’t see behind it. That was where on the outside of the enclosure, they put a toilet. Genius.
My second favorite was a shower that was basically a triangle. They took an awkward space and really used it expeditiously.
I also saw a bath tub, very similar to this one, that I loved. The feet were different but the depth and the stand alone nature was key too.
Anita Roll Top Tub
Not to mention all the delicious fixtures and sinks. I mentioned those yesterday.
5. Modern Landscaping
I know more than the average bear on this one because my best friend is in Landscape Lighthing (in Florida and they rock). We have had many discussions and one is about Aquascapes. I don’t know if you are familiar with this company but they are TOTALLY GREEN. And when I mean Green they take it serioiusly. Their entire plant (In OHIO) I think has a grass roof and tons of features that make them awesome. They do ponds and as their name indicates aquascapes. Waterfalls, moving rivers, standing water features, they do it all.
And the homes we saw, did some great water features. Even better was the landscaping around it. Use of Bamboo played beautifully through the windows on either side of the fireplaces in two homes, one had a path up into the back back yard with a bench for peaceful reflection. Another had a standing pool with two chairs and a fire bowl for quiet evenings staring at the sky. Since it was a good 10 feet below the moat-like bridge entrance to the house it added a sense of even more quiet space appeal. NICE!
Again it brought to mind with me how thoughtful the modern designers, architects and home owners are at thinking through spaces and making them reflect and wrap around the environment. Both literally and figuratively.
That is it for my notes really. I wish I had actual pictures of homes but they weren’t ok with the interior shooting and I unlike my normal thought process was respectful of their wishes.
P.S. – The decorating ideas alone deserves a blog post. In particular one house had an entire wall of chalkboard in their office and also decorated one complete wall with pages from books. IT was awesome visually and what a great way to recycle.
Also just as a note. Does anyone who has a modern home ever have children. The square furniture, glass and delicate nature makes me think it would be hard but it’s a topic of discussion.
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Looks like these are very nice and expensive homes. It is great that someone had the time and money to invest in these. We built a nice 5,500 Sq ft home a few years ago. It was fun to design and build it.