ShopDreamUp AI ArtDreamUp
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Description
Updated with a larger downloadable version: 3200x4000px
(Note: stair arrows have been corrected and now point up as per conventional notation.)
Work-in-progress architectural plan (the estate outbuildings and lower levels are not represented, and rooms are still unlabeled).
It has been years since I posted an update of this plan, and as the date on this illustration shows, this is not new work, but a WIP edition that I have been holding onto in hope that I would get the finalized version done. So far, that has not happened...
So, here we have this nigh-complete version, with much of the landscaping added and with plenty of corrections and new details, presented in fairly high resolution (download for full)
It is my intent to make a fully labelled, layered PDF version, once I work out exactly how to make it work the way I want.
(prior edition)
**********
A few key details for orientation and comprehension:
Note: The small "x"-marked boxes that dot the grounds represent stone lanterns of various size and type.
At the bottom of the illustration is the Main Gate, the primary pedestrian access to the complex from the boulevard. Flanking — but separate from — the gatehouse are two functional security posts (these are the square structures at the jag in the outer wall, not those immediately next to the swinging gate doors) that serve both the gateway and the immediate areas within the estate's walls.
The Main Gate opens into the Entry Court. To the right of this central courtyard is the large Front Auto Court with its covered coach port. The Main Auto Gate (not shown) would lie to the far right and provides for vehicular access to this and the Inner Lane, which links back to staff row houses hugging the inner wall, the Main Security Tower — a castle-like structure with the entrance to the subterranean garage in its base and exterior loading dock — and finally to the Upper Postern Gate which serves as the primary delivery entrance for this part of the estate complex. Also not shown are the private offices and library, which would lie beyond the lower right corner of the illustration.
On the left of the Entry Court lies a section of the Grand Garden, which fills most of that corner of the estate and includes an artificial lake and various structures, such as the Bonsai Pavilion.
From the Entry Court, one precedes to the Main Building of the house proper, which contains the primary shared and semi-public spaces: the Main Salon and Music Room on the first floor; the Drawing Room, formal Tea Ceremony Room and various meeting and sitting rooms on the second. On the left side of this section is the Assembly Hall (ballroom) tower — modeled after a Japanese castle and separated from the Main Building by a Zen garden — and on the right, past another small ornamental garden, the dining facilities (note the main Chef's Kitchen in the furtherest left wing), which also contains the passthrough to the private apartments of the Residency at the top of the page. Separating the Residency from the Main Building are the private Inner Gardens.
The Guest Pavilion and Sento — since, barring fortuitous location for the estate, natural onsen are unlikely — would lie to the left of the Residency. To the right, between this structure and the security facilities, would appear the Stairway Gate and Thousand Stairs: a long flight of wide, open-air stone steps that links this, the Upper Estate, to both the descending terraces (and the structures thereon, such as the Steward's Residence) and the greater Lower Estate at the foot of the hill (other more practical connections, via interior stairwells, ramps and internal lifts, are also present).
Arrayed around the central illustration of the main levels are the plans for the upper floors of these structures. Clockwise from the top: the Residency's second floor; the upper stories of the Main Building; the tower levels of the Assembly Hall; and the Master Suite's loft.
**********
These plans only depict visible surface structures, but a hint of the sub-levels is visible in this illustration. For example, at the top of the page, one can discern the walk-out veranda terrace of the recreation area located beneath the Residency and its private yard. On the right of the page, access to a service entrance of a lower area (which contians the main pantry stores, freezers and coolers, and the secondary "Caterers' Kitchen") below the Chef's Kitchen can be seen.
The sub-levels of the main house complex alone plunge down four stories, not counting the foundational vaults, with a footprint greater than that of the visible surface structures.
The intended style of this structure and its estate would be a blend of high, classic Japanese style and Western craft motifs, such as Greene & Greene interior details and Art Nouveau elements.
This project represents a stage in the slow conversion of my many paper plans into digital form.
A bit of background: this mansion is a massive reworking and scale-up of a house that actually came to me in a very vivid dream some years ago and has been the subject of no small consideration since — thus the title. More modest versions — some as small as a quarter of this grand edifice — have been laid out and may eventually appear here.
(Download for full resolution)
Digital Illustration, Adobe illustrator.
(Note: stair arrows have been corrected and now point up as per conventional notation.)
Work-in-progress architectural plan (the estate outbuildings and lower levels are not represented, and rooms are still unlabeled).
It has been years since I posted an update of this plan, and as the date on this illustration shows, this is not new work, but a WIP edition that I have been holding onto in hope that I would get the finalized version done. So far, that has not happened...
So, here we have this nigh-complete version, with much of the landscaping added and with plenty of corrections and new details, presented in fairly high resolution (download for full)
It is my intent to make a fully labelled, layered PDF version, once I work out exactly how to make it work the way I want.
(prior edition)
**********
A few key details for orientation and comprehension:
Note: The small "x"-marked boxes that dot the grounds represent stone lanterns of various size and type.
At the bottom of the illustration is the Main Gate, the primary pedestrian access to the complex from the boulevard. Flanking — but separate from — the gatehouse are two functional security posts (these are the square structures at the jag in the outer wall, not those immediately next to the swinging gate doors) that serve both the gateway and the immediate areas within the estate's walls.
The Main Gate opens into the Entry Court. To the right of this central courtyard is the large Front Auto Court with its covered coach port. The Main Auto Gate (not shown) would lie to the far right and provides for vehicular access to this and the Inner Lane, which links back to staff row houses hugging the inner wall, the Main Security Tower — a castle-like structure with the entrance to the subterranean garage in its base and exterior loading dock — and finally to the Upper Postern Gate which serves as the primary delivery entrance for this part of the estate complex. Also not shown are the private offices and library, which would lie beyond the lower right corner of the illustration.
On the left of the Entry Court lies a section of the Grand Garden, which fills most of that corner of the estate and includes an artificial lake and various structures, such as the Bonsai Pavilion.
From the Entry Court, one precedes to the Main Building of the house proper, which contains the primary shared and semi-public spaces: the Main Salon and Music Room on the first floor; the Drawing Room, formal Tea Ceremony Room and various meeting and sitting rooms on the second. On the left side of this section is the Assembly Hall (ballroom) tower — modeled after a Japanese castle and separated from the Main Building by a Zen garden — and on the right, past another small ornamental garden, the dining facilities (note the main Chef's Kitchen in the furtherest left wing), which also contains the passthrough to the private apartments of the Residency at the top of the page. Separating the Residency from the Main Building are the private Inner Gardens.
The Guest Pavilion and Sento — since, barring fortuitous location for the estate, natural onsen are unlikely — would lie to the left of the Residency. To the right, between this structure and the security facilities, would appear the Stairway Gate and Thousand Stairs: a long flight of wide, open-air stone steps that links this, the Upper Estate, to both the descending terraces (and the structures thereon, such as the Steward's Residence) and the greater Lower Estate at the foot of the hill (other more practical connections, via interior stairwells, ramps and internal lifts, are also present).
Arrayed around the central illustration of the main levels are the plans for the upper floors of these structures. Clockwise from the top: the Residency's second floor; the upper stories of the Main Building; the tower levels of the Assembly Hall; and the Master Suite's loft.
**********
These plans only depict visible surface structures, but a hint of the sub-levels is visible in this illustration. For example, at the top of the page, one can discern the walk-out veranda terrace of the recreation area located beneath the Residency and its private yard. On the right of the page, access to a service entrance of a lower area (which contians the main pantry stores, freezers and coolers, and the secondary "Caterers' Kitchen") below the Chef's Kitchen can be seen.
The sub-levels of the main house complex alone plunge down four stories, not counting the foundational vaults, with a footprint greater than that of the visible surface structures.
The intended style of this structure and its estate would be a blend of high, classic Japanese style and Western craft motifs, such as Greene & Greene interior details and Art Nouveau elements.
This project represents a stage in the slow conversion of my many paper plans into digital form.
A bit of background: this mansion is a massive reworking and scale-up of a house that actually came to me in a very vivid dream some years ago and has been the subject of no small consideration since — thus the title. More modest versions — some as small as a quarter of this grand edifice — have been laid out and may eventually appear here.
(Download for full resolution)
Digital Illustration, Adobe illustrator.
Image size
3200x4000px 1.85 MB
© 2010 - 2024 Phaeton99
Comments48
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Overall Vision
Originality Technique ImpactI have been staring at this plan sporadically for the last few hours, trying to make heads and tails of this intricate drawing which is not yet labelled.
As an architect, I must congratulate you on a floorplan which, although somewhat ambiguous in places (mainly due to the lack of labelling) and containing a few nonsensical details, looks a lot better and more coherent than some buildings I've actually seen built!
Of course, therein lies a problem - as any first and second year architecture student learns sooner or later, a building is, by definition, three-dimensional, so a nice looking floorplan is no guarantee of a nice looking building. That being said, the lack of actual three-dimensional thinking in this case is immediately apparent to the trained eye in the meandering roof edge (at least that's what the dotted line usually signifies so I'm interpreting it as such) that doesn't seem to want to keep a fixed distance from the wall, something which would result in a somewhat loopsided appearance of the finished edifice. Of course, I realise this house is inspired by Japanese architecture which makes liberal use of different eave widths in order to pleasantly stack roofs on top of one another for aesthetic rather than merely functional reasons, but even there, if you follow the roof edge around a corner or along the sides of a courtyard you will find the same eave width on the other side. Of course, I also know this is merely the result of inexperience and the fact I took about a semester long course on how to properly design roofs, so I won't hold it against you. On the contrary, feel free to contact me if you feel some specialised help on some of the details of your dream building.
Another thing which is apparent to an architect is the lack of actual structural considerations, with structure lines not carried through from one side to the other or simply vanishing in thin air. I'm assuming this house is located in an earthquake free environment (I briefly considered asking the structural engineer with which I routinely collaborate to provide a structural solution for this house as a joke, but then I realised it would be a tad too cruel considering his level of professional paranoia and the stringent earthquake proof regulations we have to work with in my country, which would most likely mean quadrupling the size of the structural members...). However, I must also say that a lot of this building does make sense from a structural viewpoint, so considering the lack of formal instruction which you avow this is indeed solid work.
Coming back to the issue of nonsensical details, a house should be designed to accommodate human habitation, so a lot of thought must be sunk into making spaces that function correctly in the presence of humans. This is also something you slowly learn in a lot of years of study, so I'm not holding it against you.
Nonetheless, some of the details are immediately apparent as odd, such as doors opening into each other, open doors blocking access to stairways (something which could be solved by simply reversing the way the door open, since there is plenty of space for them to open the other way) a tortured stairway to the sides of the main entrance that seems too narrow even for a single person (I can't be sure due to the lack of actual dimensions, but a quick look at the graphic scale seems to suggest 0.60m, which is much, much too narrow for comfort). Also, there are a few places where the stair arrows need to be flipped around, but I assume that's just because they were overlooked when you decided to adhere to established draughting standards.
Last but not least, I also seem to notice a complete lack of any bathroom facilities, but I'll chalk that down to the WIP status of this plan, but in any case there aren't enough spaces which could be bathrooms even if they're not marked as such (normally though, bathroom fixtures are drawn on the plan to indicate their position, and that is usually one of the first thing one does).
In conclusion, a solid overall effort and a very professional looking technique despite your lack of formal education in the field of architecture and the WIP status of this project. I hope you will find my critique more helpful than annoying, and I'm open to help with the details of this house. Just feel free to contact me.