DreamHouse

Latest revision as of 11:00, 3 February 2009

[edit] Dreams of grandeur

This page exists primarily to describe Nemo's fantasy dream house. It could get long and likely infect other areas of this wiki.

Nemo has been planning ideas for this house for longer than he's been known as Nemo, which is to say, before 1995! It has been revised countless times already, with ideas from family and friends. Nevertheless, some of these ideas are still wild, improbable, and quite possibly pointless. Further revisions accepted gladly.

More pointedly, a 'realistic dream house' design is also floating around this wiki, but it's not this page. ...though no doubt ideas from this page will be influential there.

Some of the main points of the house design are:

• Underground structure.
  • 3 stories of underground mansion
  • capable of being fully selfcontained
  • ie, we're talking missile-silo levels of technology being diverted to building a liveable home
• Aboveground structure
  • openplan villa, primary function to provide an entrance to the underground structure, as well as to conceal it's existance.
  • Maybe a treehouse? (see references below)

It is the underground structure that most of my design energy has been expended to date. It features

• tall ceilings
• 5 bedrooms
• study (large)
• library (large)
• formal area (large)
• living area (this is the bulk of the space (ie, large), and includes:
  • swimming pool
  • games room (like an arcade)
  • play area (more "sports" oriented area)
    • with a climbing wall
• kitchen (large)
  • decently professional fittings
• workshop/garage (large)
• art studio (possibly part of workshop?)
• "Zero" room. See http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_5z.htm for inspiration for this room

...in case you missed it, this house is intended to be large.

Once upon a time, I even started editing quake levels with the intent to model the then-design in quake. Flaws in what quake allowed, and laziness, meant this never got underway. The idea remains however, and one day a 3d walk-through will be possible. Till then, the ascii art will have to suffice... ;)

• Refer to here for info regarding the 3d walkthrough possibility

[edit] Is this Realistic?

Don't be mistaken - short of inheriting Bill Gates' fortune a couple of times, I don't expect I'll ever build anything like this. It's here as an exploration of an idea as much as anything. The main goal of the design could be said to be:

• Fancifull, but actually theoretically possible given enough time and money to develop the specific technologies.

Practicality is merely a secondary concern... ;)

[edit] Read more

[edit] Style

It's hard to describe the style of what I want for the house.

Maybe if I start by listing some major influences...

• ArtDeco
• Victorian
• Gothic
• StarTrek TNG
• DrWho (especially the "wood" tardis control room in season14)
• StarshipTitanic (which is already a mix of all of the above anyways ;)

Overall summary: Think of steam punk (also: neo-victorian), but focused less on victorian, and more on Art Deco style.

It would be the sort of place to expect - and find - a beautiful inlaid-wood styled compass on the floor of the library. (maybe below a foucault pendulum! :)

[edit] Subpages

• DreamHouse/Layout
• DreamHouse/Tech

[edit] External Links

• http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_1202/mit/index.html
• http://architecture.mit.edu/house_n/
• Shelter - Documenting a personal quest for non-toxic housing.
• Ask Slashdot: Making a House That Will Last for Centuries?
• Monolithic Dome Homes

[edit] Treehouse links

• • http://www.treehouses.com/treehouse/construction/home.html
  • http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/07/realestate/luxury/07TREE.html