The ‘Boneyard House’ is a project I came across in a recent Jetson Green article (though I didn’t the article). I really like the approach behind this, as well as the aesthetic of the house. I’ve seen other projects like this, like the ‘Big Dig House’ (which I did write about), where the materials were the starting point, and the plan develops from the available palette.

The exercise of working with constraints and possibilities from a limited set of materials is compelling. I think many architects would relish the possibility of doing a project like this; having to find solutions with a limited number of options is always more compelling than having an open, blank canvas. It’s also wonderful to find uses for perfectly good materials that would otherwise go to waste.

I also like the aesthetic of combining materials and juxtaposing different materials. I went through a period before I went back to school for architecture where I was doing 2D collages. Architects generally try to limit the number of materials they use on a project, both to simplify the construction process as well as to make a cohesive appearance. Playing with such a range of materials can be difficult, but these projects both seem to have succeeded.

Of the two, I think the interiors for the Big Dig house are more successful, and I expect I would have come up with other solutions to the interiors of the Boneyard House if that had been my project. But I think both are worth noting for both the use of otherwise scrap materials as well as for the manner in which those materials were used.

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