Concept                                              

The aim of this design is to create an ensemble of three buildings which are highly characterized and discreet but interactive. This is in stark contrast to the contemporary tendency in architecture to turn buildings into fields or landscapes or otherwise degrade their object-hood. This is not to say that buildings are somehow fragmented or collaged together. Rather, the goal is to establish that things can exist equally but differently on a flat ontological plane.

The interaction of buildings is specifically lived in terms of an exchange of crystalline massing features, as well as through the blocky cross-grain of the housing typology which pushes out from the inside. The result is a crossing-over of features which ties the complex together without literally fusing things. This is a new model of coherence, where difference is the default condition and local continuities are teased out, contra to the ubiquitous idea that difference must arise from a smooth baseline condition.

In addition to stacked and stepped housing bars, the three buildings contain interior figures which break the horizontal order. These figures are designed to be too big to fit into the given outer shells, and so when differenced, figural apertures are created. This opens up the inside to the outside along a razor edge.

Of significant importance is the way that the buildings engage the ground. The ground is designed to appear distinct from the land and also to delineate the two courtyards as objects rather than landscape. The three buildings relate to this ground by nestling into it or perching on top of it on small footprints, like birds in a nest. The result is an unsentimental ground which is in no way based on landform deformation or other confusions of architecture and earth. 

Finally, the three buildings are tied together with patchy tattoos. While tattoos sometimes emphasize building apertures or silhouette features, they also leap from building to building, making a new object. Particular to this project, tattoos delineate edges between multiple materials, producing an effect similar to a calico cat. Large patches of perforated material allow for transparency and views from housing units and covered indoor/outdoor spaces.

Site and Building Design

The project consists of three buildings on parcels one and two along Route 1, with a north-south orientation. View corridors between the street and Echo Bay are maintained in the form of public courtyards between buildings. The landscape around the housing complex is characterized by wild vegetation with figural clearings similar to crop circles. These clearings extend the litany of ‘objects’ into the landscape, and specifically avoid treating landscape as a smooth field condition. Ground-level paving and parking is minimized in favor of underground parking lots located directly above the water table.

Each building contains approximately 70 housing units (210 total), based on earlier proposals for this site. Units are broken into three types-- two bedroom, one bedroom, and studio. The organization of units switches from double-loaded to single-loaded corridor based on the location of internal voids as well as day lighting and view considerations. Unit shapes vary along the building perimeter, but maintain a rectilinear internal spine for economical planning of kitchens and baths.

All buildings feature a double-skin construction, where the inner layer is the weatherproof envelope with operable windows and doors, and the outer layer is loose-fit and sometimes perforated. These layers laminate and de-laminate in order to provide spaces for covered balconies and circulation, but also have the effect of creating thermal buffer zones. Where the inner and outer skins are coincident, balconies or glazed openings penetrate to the outside.