Portage Bay Floating Home

Portage Bay Floating Home

Seattle, Washington

While reading this month's architecture and design magazine Dwell, we came across a unique and very cool home. It is a remodeled houseboat on Seattle's Portage Bay. We have rarely seen such an out of the ordinary home. This once-plain floating home received a ten years renovation by Ninebark Design Build, interior designer Kim Mankoski, and local builder Dyna Contracting. Among the challenges they faced were comprehensive issues like how to build a home with so much detail on a platform that was constantly moving and shifting, and more particular issues like how to build steel windows that would rust yet remain waterproof. 

The end product is a 1,000-square-foot place complemented by a 400-square-foot rooftop deck that provides ample views of the waterfront and snowcapped peaks of the Cascade Mountains. Ninebark and Dyna tried to salvage as many components as they could from the original structure. On the exterior, they used Cor-ten steel and cedar, both of which will age well in the rainy northwestern climate. The interior has Marmoleum tile floor which feels warm and smooth underfoot in the living/dining/kitchen area of the houseboat. Because its moorage is at the end of the dock, the east-facing wall is completely open to the water, and the house is filled with light even on gray days. 

This is a fantastic retreat, surrounded constantly by natural light and the sound of water.

For those of you interested in Seattle houseboats, there is a very romantic one located on the famous "Sleepless in Seattle" dock. It is on the market for 900,000$. 

 See details below:

The Eames House

The Eames House

203 N. Chautauqua Blvd.

Pacific Palisades, California

We are huge fans of Charles and Ray Eames, known for their innovative furniture, as well as their contributions to architecture, film and graphic design. We actually have several of their pieces in our own home. That is why we would love to make a little trip to LA right now and visit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and its show called “California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way,” (runs through March 25). In fact, the Eames House's living room  — all 1,869 items — have been meticulously cataloged and transferred to a replica of the room installed at the museum for the show. To pack up the living room took a week with the aid of two teams, then all the items went into a freezer for five days to kill any possible insect infestations.

Anyways, for all the Eames lovers out there, the Eames House, Case Study House #8, was one of roughly two dozen homes built as part of The Case Study House Program. Begun in the mid-1940s and continuing through the early 1960s, the program was spearheaded by John Entenza, the publisher of Arts and Architecture magazine. The magazine announced that it would be the client for a series of homes designed to express man's life in the modern world. These homes were to be built and furnished using materials and techniques derived from the experiences of the Second World War. Each home would be for a real or hypothetical client taking into consideration their particular housing needs. Charles and Ray proposed that the home they designed would be for a married couple working in design and graphic arts, whose children were no longer living at home. Charles and Ray moved into the House on Christmas Eve, 1949, and lived there for the rest of their lives until their death, his in 1978 and hers 10 years to the day later. They furnished it in a way that mirrored their energetic personalities and curiosity about the world. Strikingly, the 17-foot-high living room was not at all an example of modern design, but instead a comfortable lived-in place. The house is now maintained by the Eames Foundation, set up by Lucia Eames, Mr. Eames’s daughter from his first marriage, and her children. While the family still uses it occasionally, it is a kind of time capsule that shows how the couple lived.

 

Go to http://eamesfoundation.org/ for more information about the house. You can actually hold a wedding or party in the House's meadow, or even spend a night in the Studio where daughter Lucia stayed when she came on visits. That must be a very special experience!

Resorts World Miami

Downtown Miami

“Miami is destined to be one of the most prominent cities in the world” states KT Lim, the CEO of Genting Malaysia Bhd. For this reason, Lim shelled out $236 million to buy 14 acres fronting Biscayne Bay, the Miami Herald Plaza, which has housed the newspaper since 1963. Lim plans to build “Resorts World Miami”, a $3 billion, Arquitectonica-designed project that will include four hotels, two condominium towers, more than 50 restaurants and bars and a luxury retail shopping mall. A casino will be included if the governor and Florida Legislature approve destination resort legislation, Genting said in a statement. It is being billed as one of the largest projects in the United States. 

The size of the resort would be 10 million-square-foot inspired from the region’s coral reefs. The centerpiece is a 3.6-acre outdoor lagoon equivalent to 12 Olympic-size swimming pools and surrounded by natural sand beaches that would allow visitors to literally swim from Biscayne Boulevard to the edge of Biscayne Bay.

Economically, the project will be great for Miami and the state, indeed it will allow the creation of 15,000 direct and indirect construction jobs plus 30,000 permanent positions. Genting expects to be ready to begin site work on the Miami Herald land as early as Spring 2012.

There’s really nothing to compare it to,” said Marc Sarnoff, the Miami city commissioner, who quickly added: “The closest thing is Swire.” Sarnoff was referring to Swire Pacific’s proposed $700 million mixed-use CitiCentre project in Miami’s Brickell area, which we talked about a few weeks ago.  As we noted, it’s billed as a pioneering urban retail destination that will ultimately have 4.6 million square feet of space. Arquitectonica is also the architect on CitiCentre. Swire, which developed the high-end enclave of Brickell Key, is, like Genting, an Asian-based conglomerate.

"Resorts World Miami" is expected to change the scope and landscape of Downtown Miami, bringing jobs & entertainment, as well as increased property values for nearby property owners. “It will accelerate Florida’s evolution as a global destination at the crossroads of the Americas,” said KT Lim.