The Villa de Murph is a formerly abandoned 1947 auto electrical repair shop and 60′s warehouse in West End, a “transitional part” – don’t you love that euphemism? – of Atlanta. David Yocum and Brian Bell adaptively reused the warehouse as an 1,850-square-foot office for their architectural partnership bldgs and a living space for Yocum and his wife. The roof was removed from the repair shop to create a courtyard.
Links: bldgs NY Times article
Via: ApartmentTherapy
3 Comments
The courtyard is super cool, but what really got my attention here was the bathroom floor. I assume there is a massive drain under those smooth stones. This is really clever: never mop again! If the floor gets too dirty, you just hose it off. With a radiant heat source of some kind, you could even get the top layer of these stones warm when you wanted.
I was impressed too but then I thought a bit hard on bare feet. Maybe if they were a slightly smaller?
If the stones are smooth and the right size, they can actually massage the feet in a pleasant way, especially if you are wearing flimsy-soled shoes. Some classical chinese gardens use stones set in mortar for this apparent purpose: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brokensidewalk/560701174/
These smooth stones (if you don’t get the designer ones) can be a really cheap building material that have the positive quality of allowing complete drainage. I can just order them in bulk from the local gravel company. I rebuilt some steps in front of my own house using cheap retaining wall block and then filling it with these round stones and it’s surprisingly attractive. .. though the house itself needs a paint job. When I get around to that, I’ll take a picture.
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