Via OWI – Office for Word and Image. Photo: Vercruysse Frederik

A few years ago architect/builder David Hovey designed and built this house for himself and his family in Winnetka, Illinois, just outside Chicago. Like most of Hovey’s buildings the house is constructed of relatively simple materials, including perforated steel I-beams, and all its parts are designed to be pre-fabricated and then shipped in. The house took only two days to assemble. It’s airy and welcoming, minimalist without being forbidding, and really well decorated. It takes a lot of skill to use this much red and yellow without producing a mustard-and-ketchup colour scheme – how many architects, let alone builder/architects, are this good at interior design as well? All this house needs is an indoor swing; you could hang one just about anywhere. Via AD (article worth reading). Photos by Jon Miller and Hedrich Blessing. More on Hovey at mocoloco and here.

“I’ve spent my career thinking about how to design buildings economically and efficiently,” [Hovey] says. “I want to create systems that go together simply, in a way that leads to rapid construction. By reducing the elapsed time between design and occupancy, I can save a lot of administrative costs. And I want to put everything together using standard products and familiar technologies, which saves even more.”

Vancouver could really use a few builder architects like Hovey – or even just one, somebody with a good eye and an interest in simple materials affordably assembled.

For those who aren’t familiar with the song In Every Dreamhome A Heartache, it appeared on the 1973 Roxy Music album For Your Pleasure. See here for a live performance featuring Brian Eno on keyboards, looking like a sick Ziggy Stardust, and Andy Mackay wearing some quite amazing blistered spaceman pants in green satin. The decor-filled lyrics are below, but here’s a sample: “Open plan living/Bungalow ranch style/All of its comforts/Seem so essential.” There’s a certain nostalgia for 70s decor happening at the moment. Not surprisingly, back in 1973 there was a different, more skeptical take on opulent, “utopian” postwar interior design and its discontents. As an aside, I think the houses being sung about here were actually the 50s rancher bungalows Bryan Ferry would have grown up with, but then the 1970s “dreamhome” styles would probably have had their roots in 50s modernism.

The top two photographs are from 1973; the photo at far bottom is from 1974.

Thanks to glen.h and vytaute and Miss Retro Modern on Flickr.

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