Comments on: The Camouflage House by Johnsen Schmaling Architects

By: hZ!

hZ! — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:36:50 +0000

Humpty dumpty and Monsieur Roquefort: beware of the high-tensile balustrades a la ‘Cube’.
Very funky exterior, and I love that rampant field and the building for once hardly consequential at all with the woods behind. How strange to have such transparency and deference in a house that in another area looks so stubbornly blocky and squat.
I really like that view of the excavation cutting; geology from almost inside the rock face, and the contrasting wide expanse view from high above the lake is very austerely beautiful with the calligraphic winter branches and twigs framed in the window. That is actually 90 degrees, in that shot, from the blocky blond rafters kitchen shot; same table, and how different it looks. The walls aren’t actually black in the lake shot; just silhouetted. Photography has as much to do with impressions as prospect I think in this case.
Back to humpty dumpty and messieurs cheeses, the wires, the duelling black furniture and the harsh black joinery amplify the severity of the long, low design. This building was designed to stay put, to have gravitas in its gravity and the overall effect is from some angles alienating. It’s quite funny that all the colour and humour are on the outside and that the inside is so dour. Really a building of contrasts.

By: Alyce

Alyce — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:00:25 +0000

OMG love it! I want a similar, smaller version on our bluff line. It’s a remote area and this type of home design would be perfect.

By: jean de lessard designer

jean de lessard designer — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:52:49 +0000

Really nice concept. Bravo

By: jeffrey

jeffrey — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:17:31 +0000

lovely location and exterior.. completely unlivable.. feels like a series of cels… very cold.. even the view seems isolated..

By: Connie

Connie — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:43:28 +0000

I feel exactly like Lance. Especially the first exterior photo blew me away, but the interior is somewhat disappointing.

By: graham

graham — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:06:50 +0000

Meh! Looks like a portable building on a building site. The landscape around it is a dirty parking lot. The actual exterior looks cobbled together and too me is just a mish mash of bits and pieces. the interior looks like so many of these. The builders have just cleaned up, they chuck a couple of chairs in and snap some pics. No one lives there and too be honest if that was the way the house was meant to be lived in, I certainly wouldn’t want to live there.

It’s all well and good to build these minimalist structures but in the end humans live in these and in most cases comfort is a component of the way humans live. Now if on the other hand a cyborg or robot lived here then cool

By: kast

kast — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:05:22 +0000

love the composition ,the vertical versus horizontal alignment ..its stunning .and u can be blurred by the house as at some part ,it in a cherry colour .but in the other angel its full of colour ..

By: oliver

oliver — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:35:37 +0000

yes … very cool colours. Like the “open space” very much.

By: Lance

Lance — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:40:01 +0000

I love the exterior, heaven help me I love the exterior, but the interior… Is this a house someone is going to live in? When did we stop thinking about emotion and color and life in our surroundings? But as much as I love the exterior, it lends itself to only being “valid” during the late summer and fall months.

Maybe when the flowers are in bloom in the spring and some new photos crop up I would change my mind, but overall the structure, no it’s not a house, just lacks something. Sigh, I really wanted to like it more.

By: J York

J York — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:21:05 +0000

Nicely done, design – very good, nice fit into the landscape, nice use of colors

By: Hilary

Hilary — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:00:54 +0000

drool