Painting existing development can be used to minimize the visual impact on the environment by using a color scheme which blends the dwelling into the environment. This has achieved mixed results as can be seen with the “pixilated camouflage” of this home in Ohio:

Perhaps someone still has an issue after an extended tour in Iraq, but the following home in Gulfport, Florida achieves a more appealing, aesthetic impact by using a jungle paint job, inspired by Vietnam or excessive viewing of Oliver Stone’s “Platoon“?

These two “camouflage” paint jobs may be amateurish in their effort to stamp individuality onto existing dwellings or a valid attempt at integrating the property with its surroundings, but serious designers and architects are exploring the possibilities too.

The “Camouflage House” by Johnsen Schmaling Architects, seeks to combine a low slung design with funky paintwork and natural materials to provide aesthetic appeal.

The funky paint work still intrudes upon the eye when close up to the dwelling, however this is countered by the dwelling nestling into a bluff on a lake side and takes advantage of a camouflage feature: the ability to blend in with surroundings at a distance but to be visible up close.

Japanese architect, Hiroshi Iguchi has taken the camouflage concept further in home design with his “Camouflage House 3″ and eschewed the use of paintwork completely. Here, a greenhouse design incorporates trees and plants as part of the design of the dwelling which further minimizes the impact on the landscape by using trees, commonly found in the area, as the basis for the living material of the design.

Camouflage is not simply the use of color or materials which mimic the immediate location but also uses the fact that our brains are keyed to recognize set shapes and associate them with certain objects. In military terms, the object of tying rag and netting to a helmet or weapon is to break up the outline and shape so they will not be recognized. Mobius Architects of Poland have used this camouflage concept in their Edge House development – the angles of the roof with inset skylight, with a steep shingled pitch are striking but mimic the quarry location while the outline of the dwelling is deliberately at odds with the viewers expected view of what a house should look like:

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photo by the constant skeptic

He is Nikolai Sutyagin.  He is a man who has seen it all.  Well, if not “all”, he’s seen quite a lot.  He was born and raised in a lowly communal flat in Arkhangelsk, Russia.  That’s in the northern part of European Russia, near the White Sea.  He got in some trouble at the tender age of 14 and got sent to a boy’s prison.  When he got out he worked in construction to support his single mom and his sister, and because of his insane work ethic he got referred into an “outside the box” type of working in Russia.  It’s called shabashing, and shabashniks work for the money they merit, instead of the general working system inside a socialist (read:  in this case communist) government.  He was earning way more than guys who were far more educated, and when Gorbachev came in and made Perestroyka happen (the restructuring of the government so that people could own stuff) he used his money to buy a lumber yard and start his very own contracting company.

He got rich.  Really, really rich.  He decided that he needed a house that reflected his status in the Arkhangelsk society (his status was the richest dude in a very poor town) but that he had all this lumber and labor, so why not build his own?  What resulted was the house you see in the image above.  It started out as a mere two-story building (two-story is the limit in those parts) but he didn’t like the look of it and made it taller.  And taller.  And taller. It’s a tower of a ramshackle log cabin.  It’s a log cabin mansion. And it is in fact so tall now that it’s a danger to even walk around on the highest levels, and the idea of building a fence or railing on the higher levels has been floated. But what would the fence look like? Well, unique-looking fences are all around us, whether they be London, England fences or Richmond Va fences, you can find unbelievable, pristine fences in every city of note. So, it shouldn’t be too hard for Mr. Sutyagin to find inspiration.

The owner of this cabin eventually got put in prison for 4 years.  Some accounts say it was a racketeering charge, others say he kept a dude imprisoned in a shack.  Either way, his enemies took the opportunity to put all his vehicles into the river, and to steal all his stuff.  He came out of prison completely broke, but lives in the first two levels of the house with his wife.  In squalor.

The government and the townspeople are not impressed with the structure, and are lobbying to have it demolished.  Sutyagin has gone on record saying the top 12 or 13 stories of his house are “purely decorative”, thus making the building proper a mere two stories tall.  Who will win?  Who do you think should win?  Leave a comment below.