Ashland, OR, June 21, 2006--Hakatai Enterprises, Inc., importers and distributors of glass tile, played a major role in a dynamic home building effort by Joseph Vigil and Brandy LeMae of Vast Architecture in Boulder, Colorado.
Vigil and LeMae are proponents of the sustainable building movement, and the house that they built for themselves on Hickory Avenue, aptly named the Hickory House, features no fewer than 11 sustainable features.
The 2,983 square foot house that Vast built features a passive solar design, sustainably harvested lumber, and 200 square feet of Hakatai’s glass tile. Searching for design inspiration during the planning stages of the Hickory House, Vigil and LeMae traveled to California and found it on the façade of a San Francisco building. The outside of the building was adorned in a blend of mosaic glass tiles, and Vast traveled back to Boulder to attempt to re-create what they saw. On the advice of a neighbor, they logged on to Hakatai’s web site and using its online Custom Blend Tool were able to easily recreate the glass tile blend and color scheme that they saw in San Francisco.
For the 100 square foot front exterior of the house, Vast chose Hakatai’s Cartglass Classic Series of ¾” x ¾” glass tiles to create the unique mosaic blend which included a mix of orange, red, white, blue, green and grey. The same blend that they created for the exterior of the house, was used to tile the kitchen backsplash inside.
“During the design phase,” Vigil said, “we were focused on re-creating the blend we saw on that old building in San Francisco. The versatility and reasonable pricing of Hakatai’s glass tile was the key point for us to be able to complete that particular mosaic blend and move on with the building process.”
The Cartglass Classic Series is also available in 24 standard blends which are mesh-backed for easy installations. Vast chose the Cartglass Classic Series in China Blend to tile the walls and the full-shower in the main bathroom of the house, as well as the bathroom for their daughter on the lower level.
For the floors of the upper and lower bathroom, Vast chose a more unique line of glass tile from Hakatai, the Cobblestone Series in the color Tumbled White. Each river-rock shaped glass tile is handmade and mounted on mesh backed sheets that interlock together for a seamless installation. The tranquil shapes and honed white texture of the Cobblestone tile is perfect compliment to the China Blend on the walls and according to Vigil, “really keeps it light.”
This “green” home built in Boulder by Vast Architecture, which prominently features Hakatai glass tile, is currently on the Solar and Green Built Home Tour.
