Design Contest Entry

Here at Istockhouseplans we like to use the medium of computers for designing and drawing.  Every once in a while though there comes an opportunity to do something a little different.  Dwell magazine recently ran a contest to create a home based on mid-century modern California design.  Out of LEGO.  Of course we jumped on this chance as LEGO is possibly our second most favorite design medium.  Our plan was a modest little ranch with a carport, vaulted ceiling, triangular transoms, a glass block window and an old school antenna.  You can see our design and vote for it here. 

As we mentioned a while back, if you buy one of our houseplans, we would be happy to create a LEGO model of it for your marketing purposes.  Additional cost will vary depending on the size, color and level of detail you want to express.  Please make sure to give us at least 4 weeks lead time to LEGO-ize the plan, purchase the parts, and assemble.

Design well!

Tiny+

Istockhouseplans seems to be creating a middle ground of homes in our arsenal.  We have composed quite a little group of tiny homes, by our definition 600sf and less.  With such homes as the Albina and Albina A encroaching above that mark we are having to redefine what a tiny home really is.  Both of these examples are under 600sf but have non-legal loft space of 300sf.  One could define a tiny home on square footage alone.  Part of the problem here is when a tiny home gets a modification that increases it's size past the cutoff point.  Does it then suddenly become a standard sized single family home?  We would like our classifications to make sense but also be flexible without being unruly.  So perhaps we increase our benchmark but it becomes a game of chasing one's tail.  At some point a tiny home may be around 1000sf.  Do we then bring all the related models up to the standard set on account of the largest revision?

In the meantime we have increased our tiny home definition to 700sf if only to accommodate our latest design.  The Durham A is based off of the standard Durham, but with an attached 10x12 addition.  This brings this little 1 bed 1 bath accessory dwelling up to 696sf.  Why do you think we upped our maximum size?  We liked the original of this little beast but were inspired to increase it after playing with some LEGO bricks.  In fact, the picture on set 5477 looks similar to what we ended up building.  Our drawn plans have a little more precision than the plastic brick model.

Speaking of which, if you would like to commission a LEGO model of any of our homes that you are building, contact us and we'll talk about details.

Happy Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving folks! We are thankful that we are in business despite the housing market. In celebration of the holiday we will be closed Wednesday through Sunday. Any orders placed in that time will be processed and shipped on Monday the 26th.

Finally, the long anticipated Richmond series is making its way online. The Richmond and Richmond A are available on our site. Still to come are three more versions including a rowhouse. Both Richmonds are similar at 1606sf, 3 beds, 2-1/2 baths. They also feature bay windows in the parlor and dining, a large kitchen, and flex space downstairs. The main difference between the two is that the Richmond A has been slightly reconfigured to have stairs going down to a garage. It is 3 stories tall and could be built as 3 above grade or with the garage buried. The facade of both plans is a little funky, but we also include a simpler alternate elevation with the plans. You could go for broke, be conservative, or mix and match. The soon to come Richmond C will feature an even different facade for your choosing pleasure.

As previously mentioned, we didn't place in Portland, Oregon's Courtyard Housing Design Competition. However you can vote for us in the People's Choice Award by visiting the competition website, clicking the 'vote for your favorite' link, and entering '125' in the Inner Portland Site box. Our design can be seen on the site as well at the top of page 3 of the inner Portland entries. Once you visit the page, click on entry 125 to bring up the pdfs. Though we didn't win, we commend the first place winner for their very similar design to ours. It makes us feel good to know that we had the 'right idea' (to be read as 'ability to figure out what the judges wanted'), even if our presentation was a little lacking. We're pretty proud of our LEGO construction, though!

Istockhouseplans wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving and a restful and pleasant holiday.

Brick by Brick

Happy October.  This is your general istockhouseplans update.  Portland's Courtyard Housing competition ends in 2 weeks.  We have finished design for our entry and are now compiling the data in to required submittal formats.  We are attempting a medium that has never been attempted before above the 6th grade.  Our perspective drawings and layouts were created with MLCAD, also known as Mike's LEGO CAD.  Since 3-D elements are not allowed in the competition, we created our courtyard out of LEGO bricks in CAD and then saved out the pictures.  Images will be available after the competition is over.

 

As we mentioned before, this competition generated three new house plans for us (really just three variations of the same plan).  It was all inspired by the original design which was stuck on some drawing board underneath other concepts.  We will be releasing the Creston series of plans soon.  The Edgewood series is almost complete and will be up about the same time.  We are also finishing up another yet unnamed plan.

 

However, we first need to finish clearing up the bugs in the website before we get any further on adding to it.  We are hoping to have that done by the next update.  As if we didn't have too many irons in the fire already, we are also going back through our established plans and adding slab and basement foundations where appropriate.  Being stuck in the great Northwest, those foundations don't often get built here but we understand they are the majority in other places.  If there are other variations that you would like to have plans done in (stick frame roofs, 2x4 walls, etc.), let us know and we will try to accomodate.  We do mostly 2x6 walls for the Energy Path 1 requirements and trussed roofs for cost and efficiency.

 

Talk to you in two weeks.  Or visit us sooner.