Alpine Villa

Original design sketch for a steep roof pitch luxury mountain chalet or villa depicted in a Western setting, maybe Colorado or New Mexico. In this design, I pushed roof design to the limit, allowing all kinds of eccentric ideas. Many, many influences on this style of home, including American storybook cottages, Queen Anne and other eccentric Victorian types, English Tudor and Northern France, French polychrome roof tiles, Scandinavian timber churches and buildings, especially roof and gable peak design, mountain architecture of the world, and more. Design exercises like this help me work out difficult and challenging compositions and roof structures. The floor plan would include many level changes and eccentricities. I'm assuming the master suite is up high, 2nd and 3rd floor, center right, a 2-story study might be in the ground floor room to the far right, living area in center to the rear, a guest bedroom to the center left, ground floor with the flower box under the window, kitchen to rear left, and laundry, mudroom, and garage to the left in an L-shaped wing going back (unseen.)

Materials include stone foundation over poured concrete, brick primary exterior material over 2x6 stud walls, judicious use of heavy timber frame elements throughout the house incorporated into the 2x6 framing, small areas of rough cast/stucco up high as well as wood siding, slate roofs with polychrome accents in ceramic tiles, and heavy use of wood paneling throughout the interior.

Drawing technique: Portrait sketch and floor plan was drawn on one piece of white vellum 8.5" x 11" (A4), primarily using 5H, 2H, H, and HB pencils with plenty of erasing on white vellum. If you look at "The Key to the Infinite Village,"built4ever.deviantart.com/art/… you will see this house in the background, right in the middle. I re-drew it larger and detailed it out as if it was a luxury home ready to be built for a special client somewhere out west in the U.S. Maybe 14 hours of sketch time total? Then scan to computer, darken a bit, and clean up in Gimp, add labels and such.

Plan and Interior Cutaway/Structure: