Vertical House by Axis Mundi

Here are several views of a proposed mountain house for a site in Smugglers Notch, Vermont, by New York architects axis mundi.

"Entry is via a long and dramatic bridge to a viewing platform from which one ascends a staircase into the house," the architects' website explains. Kitchen, dining room, living room, and master bedroom are encountered in sequence as one moves upward through the structure.


You eventually arrive at an "open air garden... situated on the roof."The intention is that over time the house will become considerably lush as vines grow down from the roof, in effect making the house into a modern ruin.

The wood cladding you see is teak on a concrete and steel frame. Give that thing wider corner posts, run the utilities and services down through through them, and you're good to go. Install a portaledge or two, and the house gets even better.


Then, three hundred years from now, refugees from a half-flooded Manhattan – that city all but destroyed by an unspecified disaster – make their way north to find the house still standing and covered in a thick labyrinth of vines, home to migrating tropical birds. They clear themselves a place to sleep amidst the dust and vines, and stay for nearly two weeks – before heading further inland, toward the ruins of Montreal, still fleeing whatever unknown fate awaits those stuck in that city down south.

Another hundred years and the building collapses, forming a debris field of wood, metal, and concrete across the hillside, washing down to nothing over decades of rain.

(Text via: BLDGBLOG)
(Images via: Axis Mundi)