Exterior

First Floor

Second Floor

Not sure about the stairs. As a younger man it wouldn’t have been an issue for me, but these days…climbing stairs is probably exactly what I should be doing, y’know?

There also needs to be a guest bath on the first floor. Luckily it looks like there’s some unassigned space on the north side of the plan where you could easily put one in.

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Another well thought-out thick-walled (I am assuming) Russian house.

I love how these plans don’t even feature garages. It’s refreshing to see residential architecture from a non-car-centric perspective.

I could definitely live here without making any changes.* Would you?


*The only thing I might change would be to flip the second bathroom and the closet/storage area on either side of the main entrance and open the bathroom to the main living area instead of the Foyer.

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Ostentatious Doesn’t Even BEGIN To Describe This Monstrosity

Let’s see…a 4 car garage plus an addition 2 car garage, a Billiards Room, a  Billards Gallery, His ‘n Hers Offices, His ‘n Hers Bathrooms, His ‘n Hers Powder Rooms, Assistant’s Office, Conservatory, a BALL ROOM, a 21′ x 44′ Entry Hall with its own BAR, Butler’s Pantry, Elevator, a Hers Closet that’s bigger than our Living Room, and not one, but two Family Rooms…

It’s like those old illusion drawings where you’re supposed to locate all the things that are fucked up.

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So That’s What’s Going On…

Downtown Phoenix Apartment Tower Heads To Auction After $128M Loan Goes Unpaid

X Phoenix, the 330 unit apartment community at 200 W. Monroe Street in Downtown Phoenix, is headed toward a trustee sale after its developer failed to repay a $128 million loan tied to the property.

According to Maricopa County documents, lender Mack Real Estate Group has scheduled the first phase of X Phoenix to be sold at auction on December 10 at Maricopa County Superior Court.

The property originally opened as a roughly $100 million development and marked Chicago based The X Company’s entry into the Phoenix market.


Ben and I were discussing this only a couple days ago; about how it seemed all progress had ground to a halt. To be honest, the entire concept and design of X Phoenix was odd from the beginning. Based on its description it sounded more like a high-tech dormitory for young adults (private bedrooms and baths, but shared living and kitchen facilities) than a traditional apartment building. Nevertheless it seemed to fill up quickly. Maybe I’m just old, but…no thanks!

The first phase of this building went up pretty quickly. It was directly north of City Hall so I saw it every day.

They started construction on Phase 2 in late 2023 or early 2024, and it seemed it was taking forever. When I retired from the City in January 2025, it still wasn’t finished, although it looked close enough that would probably be done by the end of the year.

Well, imagine my surprise when I was downtown a couple weeks ago and saw that it still wasn’t completed, and in fact, looked like precious little had been done since I last saw it 20 months ago. At least now I know why.

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That’s Quite A Hallway…

arkular_: Embrace the slow. Designed around the landscape, the Jindabyne House is a home base for getting out into nature and then retreating back in.

At 280m², the L-shaped layout balances shared living with private retreat spaces, creating a home that feels generous, calm, and easy to live in. Expansive glazing brings the outdoors in, while a fully self-sufficient, off-grid setup allows for independence without compromising comfort.

Thoughtfully designed, sustainably powered, and carefully considered, this is architecture that works with the landscape, not against it. Your site deserves a home designed for it.

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Midcentury Compact

Other than the windows on the exterior rendering not matching up with the actual floor plan…

The kitchen needs work, moving the door to the carport if necessary to the other side of the “food bar” so cabinets can be run the lenth of that wall. The entry hall is also unnecessarily long and dark, but I don’t know what could be done other than putting a glass panel front door in place.

Obviously some changes have been made…

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I Don’t Care For The Exterior Treatment, But I Rather Like The Floor Plan (With A Few Caveats)

I’d turn the existing Pantry into a Breakfast Room. Some of my fondest memories of childhood revolve around eating my bowl of cereal (usually corn flakes with sugar sprinkled on top, doused with half-and-half) in the breakfast room of my grandparents’ house in western Massachusetts. The closet between the Kitchen and the Service room could easily be turned into a pantry. I also think the cubbies and the fireplace in the Library need to go. There’s no place to put a desk unless you want it floating in the middle of the room.

I’d also have to sort out that rabbit warren of spaces just to the left of the staircase on the second floor. It seems odd that you’d have to pass through the door to the Master Suite in order to access the second bathroom since there is already a dedicated bathroom in the suite.

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Nice Layout, But…So. Many. Bathrooms.

Villa Polo, Driss Kettani Architecte
370 m2
Casablanca, Morocco

The Villa Polo in Casablanca is projected on a 250 m2 plot in a residential area. The constraints of the neighbourhood and the north orientation on the street have directed the design towards creating an inner world that is both open, intimate and mysterious. Urban regulations have defined the general layout, the house having two adjoining houses on both lateral sides and being open on the street to the north and to a south-facing garden. The layout of spaces on the ground floor emphasized the fluidity and efficiency of the location of service spaces in order to retrieve the most beautiful and larger space possible overlooking the garden and the pool to the south. Thus, a compact area includes the kitchen, staircase, entrance and an office/bedroom space. The rest of the space is dedicated to a large, generous and versatile living room space extended by the terrace outside. A fireplace composed by a game of superimposed plans animates the large living room and creates an anchor point. Upstairs, the north orientation is the pretext to install a concrete protective wall/screen hiding a linear garden and a planted patio around which the common areas of the floor are articulated when the 3 bedrooms benefit from the south orientation. The parent’s bathroom overlooks this intimate landscaped space open to the sky. This screen is punctuated with perforations that bring a theatrical light to the small family room as well as a slot facing the parent’s bathroom. This screen defines in a certain way the volumetry of the project by giving it an abstraction enhanced by the concrete material and the recess created by the patio upstairs.

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And Now For Something A Little Different

So. Many. Stairs.

(But at least there’s an elevator.)

thestudioofchristopherphelps: “Yeah, just like Jagger, start me up and I never stop!

I was thinking about how many professional chefs actually don’t want to cook in their spare time. They really love what they do, but they associate it with work. I’m a little unique in that way. I love what I do, but I continue to draw in my spare time. I keep coming up with new ideas, like this one.

So, I gotta draw it for the fun of it! Ha!

As city lots get divided into smaller parcels because of demand for executive housing near workplaces, the idea of giving up luxury because of these constraints is a creative challenge I enjoy tackling!

In this concept, I call it the “Baldwin Ave City Home”; I attempt to design as narrow a house as possible while retaining decent room sizes and layout. The result is a 21-foot-wide home, featuring all the bells and whistles a luxury home should have: four full-size bedroom/bath suites, an elevator, a study, a club room, a golf simulation room, and a pavilion.

Sure, it is proportionally challenged, but it always draws a surprised reaction when I show it.”

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It’s Got An Atrium AND A Hobby Room! 🤣

And all this can be your’s for only $30.950!

First off, I’d rip out that hobby room and let it be a dining area. I’d block off about 10 feet on the right side of the multi-purpose room with a door to the space from the foyer, and turn it into an office. The multi-purpose/family room would still be plenty large enough and it would still get plenty of light. I might ditch the carport and enclose the area to create a full two-car garage.

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Sprawling

The sunken living room dates this from the early 70s.

I wouldn’t want to live there (way too big), but I still appreciate it for what it is.

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