11 Home Designs Driven by Carports
More a showcase for cars than a garage, the carport keeps parking out in the open. These spaces do it in high modern style
Houzz Contributor. My name is Bud Dietrich and I am an architect located in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. I am licensed to practice architecture in Illinois, Florida, New Jersey & Wisconsin and I am a certificate holder from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). Since 1996 I have worked from my home office and provide full architectural services exclusively to the single family residential market. My passion is to transform my clients' houses into their homes. I strive to have the "new" home accommodate my clients' lives without fighting them at every junction. I look to add curb appeal to encourage a beautiful streetscape. And I design any addition to look and feel like it has always been there.
Our projects have won numerous design awards as well as having...
Houzz Contributor. My name is Bud Dietrich and I am an architect located... More »
A hallmark of International style, other than the ubiquitous white box, is the piloti, which raises the house up and off the ground. These stiltlike columns were used quite a bit by Le Corbusier in the 1920s and continue to be used by architects to this day.
Certainly one of the reasons to lift the house up off the land originally was to accommodate the automobile. The car arrived en masse in the early 1900s and had a significant impact on the ways people lived. It stands to reason that it would also have had a significant impact on the ways homes were built.
Two big issues with the car and home design have been how to create a transition from car to house, and how to accommodate the car when it just sits there doing nothing. One solution has been to raise the house up and slide the car below. Below see how some architects, starting with Corbu's iconic Villa Savoye, have done just that.
Certainly one of the reasons to lift the house up off the land originally was to accommodate the automobile. The car arrived en masse in the early 1900s and had a significant impact on the ways people lived. It stands to reason that it would also have had a significant impact on the ways homes were built.
Two big issues with the car and home design have been how to create a transition from car to house, and how to accommodate the car when it just sits there doing nothing. One solution has been to raise the house up and slide the car below. Below see how some architects, starting with Corbu's iconic Villa Savoye, have done just that.
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| Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye near Paris was built in the late 1920s. The thin, pencillike pilotis lift the main structure above the landscape, giving the illusion that the house is floating above the field. Corbu's fascination and love of ocean-liner design is here transposed to a static object anchored in place. The ground-level exterior walls of glass are curved to accommodate the turning radius of an automobile and visually disappear, increasing the illusion that the home is floating above the landscape. And the space between the glass wall and the pilotis was designed to be just enough to accommodate a car (probably a Peugeot). In fact, Corbu stated that the house "was designed with the car in mind." |
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by FrontPorch
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| Another solution to accommodate the car has been to take a corner or other chunk out of the International-style white box. Cool, rational and Euclidean — but oh, so incomplete without the car in the corner. |
Raised up and made all the more rigid with its white framed outline, the white box of the International style gives way to more natural materials. A parking area tucked under the home provides shelter for people getting in and out of the car, while not using any more land than is necessary. It's a rational solution for accommodating the car on a small lot.
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| The house form serves as a big gate that can be opened only by arriving in a car. And the cars sit firmly in the center, not off to one side. How American is that? |
Materials and colors that blend with rather than contrast the landscape are used here. The result is an adaptation of the International style that's less rationally machined and more romantic and natural.
Now that the house has been raised and the car can slide underneath, why not turn the car into sculpture? This makes sense given just how much we spend in these machines and how central they are to our lives. And for the most part (the Pontiac Aztec notwithstanding), they're beautiful, sculptural forms that evoke speed and fluidity, a nice counterpoint to the static and rigid geometries of homes.
| The house, like some fifth-wheel camper, is poised to be unshackled from its site, though surely something a little more substantial, say a Mack truck, is going to be needed in lieu of the sports car. |
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| Has the car slid down the ramp to stop, or will there be a helix that wraps around to continue the upward movement the house implies? And what's more static, house or car? |
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| A generously sized parking area gives the car space to shine and be that sculpture we love. And all that extra space lets us park it just so, making sure we catch just the right view of our beloved automobile as we gaze at it from inside. |
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| Can't lift the whole house up? Then lift just the roof over the car and support it on thin pilotis. Certainly there's no mistaking how one is supposed to enter and exit this home. It simply needs the car to be complete. |
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| "Let's take the house out for a spin!" Not only does this home get raised to accommodate the car, but it becomes a car! Or a plane, or a ship or any of the other things the owner decides to feature. More: Great Garages: Parking, Reconsidered |
Comments
Paradigm Gallery Great post, Bud
14 months ago · Like
Baldridge Architects Thanks for including us here. We intended the building to be more in motion than the car to be sure.
14 months ago · Like
lyvia being a less modern type, I prefer softened carport shapes - barrel ceilings, curtains, trellises for grape or kiwi, green roofs, curved balconies, etc. Are there garage doors that are drive-through curtains, like a car wash?
14 months ago · Like
Regina Davalle belissima!!!!!!!!
14 months ago · Like
Universal Joint Design Associates hi bud. enjoyed the post. thanks for including the texas cantilever! my brother keeps asking me to do one in st. petersburg - so maybe we'll be your way one of these days. second floor shots attached...regards, jonathan. 
14 months ago · Like
Jess Holmes I feel like carport designs vs garages are definitely favored among innovative architects like the ones whose work is shown here. I especially love the 3rd to the last with the lights underneath. Gives me ideas for my own carport. Thanks for the post!
4 months ago · Like
Ideabook updated on Feb. 15, 2013.
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