[MOC] "Workshop" House

[Commander Wolf]

Hi all, I'm mainly a train guy, but I have a mild interest in architecture and an opinion on what I want in building design. This year I decided that I would build a house for our LUG's annual Christmas show, and of course it took me basically the whole year to design and build something I liked.

I actually started with three design "concepts" that I felt were worth trying to implement: "open" house, "indoor-outdoor" house, and "workshop" house (this one). I won't say much about the former two since I may still want to build them in the future, but workshop eventually won because I had more issues shrinking the other two (more on that in a bit).

The concept behind the workshop house is simple: the bottom floor is entirely workspace and the second floor is entirely living space. That's it. I build scale models for my trains, so I originally intended to make a scale model for this house, but it very quickly became apparent that a scale model would be really, really big, even after I reduced the scope (fewer rooms) of the design. It was only on the third revision that I finally decided to make it more of an "architectural concept" than a scale model, and tried to design it with the same level of fidelity as say a Creator or Modular building.

And that's the one I actually built.

In this design I also tried to manifest some themes I'm indirectly interested in exploring: the contrast between old and new, open floorplans, and the inclusion/intrusion of nature. For example, the workshop section of the house is built to suggest brick, something very heavy, while the top is designed to look more modern, something more light. The kitchen/dining room/living room are all in the same space, and the only private sections are a bathroom and bedroom. Finally the workshop has wide sliding doors on both ends such that it can essentially be transformed into an outdoor space. 

Finally, because I was looking at Creator sets for inspiration, the house also folds open down the center. I'm not sure how much play value there is in a thing like this, but at least you can see inside. Looking at the furnishings I can elaborate what I meant when I said "architectural concept" vs "scale model": in this house there isn't explicitly all the things you would need to make it livable, which is what allows to not be huge. There isn't like a shower or a kitchen sink or a refrigerator, rather there is a suggestion that there is a bathroom and a kitchen in their respective locations.

Most of the furniture is stolen from official sets. I'm really not into furniture as much as the building-level idea.

Those doors aren't really supposed to be clear, but I couldn't find anything opaque, and I wanted viewers to be able to look into the rooms. 

Finally there is a laundry room on the roof and an opening thing that was supposed to be a skylight (you can see it in the LDD model), but the old skylight piece turned out to be very hard to get. 

I think that's everything I have to add; there is of course a full gallery if it ever gets moderated, and if you are in the SF Bay Area you can see the house for yourself at the BayLUG Christmas display.

[Wesley D]

Nice building. I like the style, a bright building outside and inside, with all those windows. Like the way you have photographed it, it would suit very well in a green environment!