Steve Jobs to Build 'The iPhone of Houses'

This house can be yours too for the low price of 399,999.99 (or 349,999.99 with a 10-year contract.). Of course, version 2.0 will be out in 12 months that makes this house obsolete.
 
cell tower?

Did anybody see an ATT cell tower on his property so SJ can use his iPhone with enough signal strength?

The windows joke was a good one!
 
Wow, my dream home is bigger than that. :) :)

Of course, I have no money to build my dream home. So maybe Steve can give me some since he's not spending a lot of this home. :)


I wonder if he will have a glass spiral staircase?

Only looks like a single story to me.
 
The house is a little bigger than those drawings depict, as there are stairs leading to a downstairs that is not shown. Probably to the 5th bedroom that is mentioned, likely a downstairs guest room of sorts or something.

Agree with everyone else though. Simple, not over the top. I like.

Those stairs lead to the iBunker :p
 
If this is the iPhone of houses, I guess my house is the Zune of houses. Or perhaps a 1st Gen nano . . . old, small, and ugly.
 
QCassidy352 said:
In an age where architect and design firms are just starting to apply to Apple's design principles to the building of homes, Steve Jobs has gone and designed the iPhone of houses.

WTH? Whoever wrote this clearly doesn't have any idea about what has been going on in architecture in, oh, the past 150 years. I met Peter Bohlin last year and we got to talking about his design strategies. He's been doing similar work throughout his career, even before BCJ (then Bohlin Powell) was founded in 1965. Check out Japanese architecture from the past 1,500 years.

+1 to charliex5. Apple inspiring architects, well that's kind of funny, possibly when we have Unibody construction homes.
 
he can control everything from his ipad and his iphone, he will be so happy with the house we cant have. but in all seriousness that is awesome but i wonder if it will be technological, and everything will run on ios. lol
 
Too many folks think just because you have wealth that you have to build a oversized Gaudy McMansion as some kind of totem to prove your wealth to the unwashed masses.

I myself like smaller well built with high quality material and nice architecture with a large lot/waterfront.
 
Gates: What's that?
Jobs: It's an iHouse.
Gates: But there's no Windows.
Jobs: Exactly!!! Hahahahaha!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHO8l-Bd1O4

So THAT'S what this house is! No wonder why there were no windows diagrammed in the blueprints!

he can control everything from his ipad and his iphone, he will be so happy with the house we cant have. but in all seriousness that is awesome but i wonder if it will be technological, and everything will run on ios. lol

In that case, the only thing a robber needs to do to get into the iHouse is jailbreak the security system :D
 
Quite a contrast from his neighbor, Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison's's place on Mountain Home Rd, also in Woodside, is an unbelievable extravagance -- quite the opposite of Jobs'. http://articles.sfgate.com/2001-03-27/news/17591051_1_hot-tub-pond-tons

I believe the place is built entirely without nails, using old Japanese techniques. He brought in 3750 tons of hand-chisled granite, and 5000 tons of boulders, and moved 81,000 cubic yards of earth for his estate. I haven't been in, but it's intriguing from the gate-house.

-- Bridges and pathways lead to a teahouse, moon pavilion, guesthouse, bridge house, boathouse, barn and "Katsura house," a made-in-Japan near replica of a famous teahouse built as part of a royal compound of the same name in Kyoto, Japan, in the early 1600s.
-- The project: Transform 23 acres in Woodside into Japanese-style imperial villa with 10 hand-crafted buildings, bridges, manicured gardens, ponds, waterfalls and islands.

-- Price tag: Reportedly approaching $100 million, up from $40 million estimate in 1996, with two years to go.

Jobs' current place in Palo Alto is similarly modest to his new one -- though a little less private: You can often see him inside, and occasionally picking apples in the yard.
 
Woah I love that plan, there is no doubt Steve is a modernist.
If they are any other drawings some Ele's and section would be very neat to see.

Ok Price tag of $8+mil going by the high spec houses I've worked on this one seems quiet small so the level of workmanship and materials being planned must all be very impressive.

I'm sure we'll see photos on every ArchiBlog once it's done.
 
Jobs is a *big* MCM fan, leaning more towards European designers such as Saarinen, Hansen and Bertoia more so than American designers such as Nelson, the Eameses and McCobb. One thing I noticed when the iPad debuted is the iPad was on one of Saarinen's Tulip tables, and he himself sat in Le Corbusier's LC2 lounge chair. Apple products being inspired by old Dieter Rams designs and being made of fewer and fewer parts and having simple visual form is no coincidence.

That's why he hated Jackling's mansion with such a burning passion. It was very much Spanish Revival, which tends to be very decorative.
 
WTH? Whoever wrote this clearly doesn't have any idea about what has been going on in architecture in, oh, the past 150 years. I met Peter Bohlin last year and we got to talking about his design strategies. He's been doing similar work throughout his career, even before BCJ (then Bohlin Powell) was founded in 1965. Check out Japanese architecture from the past 1,500 years.

As an architecture major and architectural history minor I find this comment to be Jobs-worship. Thinking that nobody else could come up with the concept of a simple and sophisticated design is just asinine.

My rant aside, I love the floor plan and can't wait to see some elevations/perspectives. Go BCJ!

Also, on a side note, BCJ is the firm that designed Bill Gates' house...

Exactly. Modern architecture has been about all of these ideals for years.
 
Oh i'm sure there will be LOTS of technology in the house.

I bet he'll be able to control everything via an app on his iPhone.

The house itself doesn't need to be HUGE. He can still apply a lot of technology into the house making it worth millions!

I'd wager that Jobs will avoid putting superfluous technology into the house. We know he loves simple and existing home control systems are usually anything but.

Filling a home wilth complex technology can actually have a negative effect on a home's value because it requires expensive servicing and, of course, becomes obsolete very quickly.
 
So are there enough Arch's on this board to have a mock up competition?

I see a plan like that and I already have an idea of how I'd elevate it what materials would be used. But also how I'd expect the Architect in question to create the the Form. Then again there is Steve's influence.

Then again there are probably 100's of ways this could look and still be in keeping with the Aesthetic and the plans. We see mock ups of every other product why not the iHouse?

Edit: Does anyone else think that is a wood fired dome (pizza) oven standing in the door way of the butlers kitchen?
 
If I touch it on the southwest corner will it not work? ;)

LMAO


You know what would be funny. What if he is just using this simple house design to calm the neighbors down. They were freaking out about him tearing down the old mansion. Maybe he will build this and leave it up a year or two and then tear it down and build a much bigger house when he doesn't have to submit anything to the association. Seems excessive, but rich people can afford the expensive comedy. :D
 
Simple designs have indeed existed for thousands of years, but most of the McMansions going up aren't like that, more like castle imitations. These people have all the money in the world and access to the best architects and designers to build something memorable and they end up getting a McCastle that the Beverly Hillbillys would like.

So, good for Jobs for having some taste and building something worthwhile.

And, yes, there will be a secret ATT antenna buried in the walls so Jobs will think his reception is normal.

I would have a turntable in front of the garage. You can devote less space to the driveway area. A water feature too. Any sign of solar? It is still a big house and will use a lot of energy no matter what.
 
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