Second, in keeping with the concept of an Eco House, it would have lots of solar panels on one part of the roof and another part would be a 'green roof'.
Third, it would have a curved frontage with windows all round. The idea is that the house looks out over a particularly attractive vista, perhaps with dramatic scenery or with wildlife viewing. So the plan includes curved viewing areas on two levels.
Fourth, the two roof parts will be sloping flat roofs, one sloping up and the other down.
The curved frontage and the sloping roofs were the specific challenges I set for myself with this project.
The left hand image shows the ground plan for the house. At the bottom of the image (the back of the house) is a garage that is 5 inches wide, while the length of the rest of the rear is 11.5", so that the total width of the building is 16.5". From the back of the garage to the point marked A is 21", but then the curved frontage projects further out from there.
The curved front is shown in the two images above. The right hand image shows the first course of the building. The two red splay bricks (Standard Brickplayer) are used to begin the curved frontage with a 45 degree turn. In the ground plan, a splay brick is shown shaded by the corner marked A. (It can be seen more clearly by clicking on the image.)
The first challenge was to determine exactly how that curved front viewing window will go. The point B is halfway across from point A, and since the width of the building, excluding the walls, is 15.5 inches, the distance AB is 7.75". Point C is then 7.75" from B on a line at right angles to AB. The result is that the triangle ABC is an isosceles triangle and the line from C to A continues at the correct 45 degree angle along the edge of the splay brick. The two curved lines mark the curved wall, and are drawn as circular segments centred at C. The distance CA is 7.75" times the square root of 2, i.e. 10.96", so the radius of the outer curved edge is 11.46", Therefore the curved frontage projects 3.71" beyond the point A.
The dashed curved line in the ground plan marks the front edge of the curved wall of the upper viewing window and lies just 6 inches further back from the front of the lower viewing window.
The next challenge is the sloping roof lines. The image below shows the side view.
Dotted lines show the projection of the curved walls. The pitch of each roof is one course per 1.5 inches, created by the Contemporary Brickplayer bricks LB5, LB6 and LB7.
The combination of the curved frontages and the sloping roofs leads to the greatest challenge of this project; see the discussion of the roof construction below.
The first 9 courses were straightforward, building up the ground floor of the house, but here we see eight bricks projecting halfway inwards. These are to support the platform shown in the image below.
The platform is to support the curved frontage of the upper level, and on the 11th course eight more sideways bricks hold it in place. The shape of the platform is shown with dashed lines in the ground plan image above. Also here we see the alternating red splay bricks to provide the 45 degree turn to start the curve on each level. I decided to start the upper level after 10 courses, even though it would not eventually be visible for several more courses, to ensure that there was a solid wall to lay the upper level viewing windows on.
The next image shows the construction of the walls almost complete. The use of the bricks LB5, LB6 and LB7 to handle the sloping roofs is also clear in this image.
However, there is one last challenge to be met.
The image above shows a consequence of having both a curved wall and a sloping roof over it. The top of the wall also has to curve. As we move from the sides to the middle, the projection increases, and because of the slope so does the height of the wall. All the bricks along the top edge have been filed to achieve this right curve (the exact form of which requires a little mathematics that I will leave as an exercise!). The top of the wall on the lower level needs to curve the other way, and also required all the bricks to be filed to the right shape.
Notice also in this image how there are slight gaps between the bricks (and windows) due to the curvature. In principle, the bricks, and even the windows, could have been filed to achieve perfect joins, but I decided this was one labour too far. Half bricks LB3 have been used to minimise the gaps, except that in the lower courses that will not be visible once the roof is on I have used whole bricks LB1.
I then needed to construct the two sloping roofs. Their front edges required another different curve. I could have worked it out but instead, once the walls were right I could just lay the piece of hardboard on and mark it underneath along the top of the wall.
The edges of the two roof pieces were finished with a flexible rubber seal that I bought online. The upper level roof in this image has the green simulated grass sheet that I also bought online (and had used for landscaping the Mansion). But I thought the interior would need extra daylight coming from transparent roof lights. These come as part of the Contemporary Brickplayer kits, and the image below shows that roof completed with some fine grey grit glued on around the roof lights.
The lower level roof was covered with a grey simulated tarmac/asphalt that I had also used on the Mansion. I then added the solar panels. I bought some stick-on solar panel images of about the right scale and stuck these onto pieces of thin steel sheet that I cut out with tin snips, and then stuck to the roof with sticky pads. The project was now ready to be completed with some landscaping around it.
More simulated grass was applied. The gravel driveway is simply sandpaper. The paths are laser-cut pieces of wood that my son gave me. And the final results can be seen at the top of this page.
My second Brickplayer project was now complete, and the only remaining challenge was to find somewhere to put another large and heavy model!
More links: This Brickplayer website sits within my personal website tonyohagan.co.uk. The links below provide access to the other parts of my website.
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