Canada-based designer Omer Arbel has unveiled designs for a series of homes in Washington State made from concrete and covered in wooden balls intended to cultivate ecosystems over time.
Arbel, the founder of lighting brand Bocci, was commissioned to design 16 houses on Governor's Point, a peninsula that juts into Bellingham Bay north of Seattle. The land was purchased by Arbel's business partner, Randy Bishop.
Omer Arbel has released plans for a residential community in Washington State
Called 94, the houses would be made mostly of concrete with cavern-like entryways and breezeways woven through the forested site. The collection of residences was designed to form a micro-community connected to the local grid and ring the edge of the peninsula. Arbel told Dezeen that he designed them to mesh with, and possibly aid, the ecology of the site.
"The houses aim to enmesh themselves in the site in such a way that they become contributing elements in the microecology at both a macro and micro level," said Arbel.
"We aim not only to limit the harm of the development to the ecosystem but hopefully, over time, to even contribute to its resiliency and health."
It will have 16 unique concrete houses
This enmeshment can be seen in the renderings of "cedar orb clouds" suspended from the concrete facade. These orbs would be made from polished burls ? the unusable bottom of trees.
Arbel said the hope is that they silver and become covered in moss to create &quo...