As a residential architect specializing in the shingle style, I have decided to try and design an architecturally “A+” 2100 (amended to 2721 sqft) square foot house to make available to the masses for a low cost compared to my one off designs for full service fees. The style will be Neo-New England vernacular design; very simple and boxy to save money, analogous to a traditional cape or colonial, but putting a focus on architectural design and material quality rather than traditional fluff.
In many ways I’m looking at where the wall surface treatment is going and I’m reminded of FLW’s Automatic/Usonian houses. But that is also where I’m feeling like you need to consider pushing things a bit more.
With the Automatic houses the design was about using the walls to create space, circulation and views (primarily with a diagonal visual orientation). The walls were manipulated to slide past each other to make openings (doors and windows) and their height was changed to make and emphasis the hierarchy of space. The design was essentially about the walls.
Your house has a quite different parti at this point. It seems to me to be about a box with a roof where the windows and doors are punched into the walls to make openings. The walls are a necessity to create the box – not special in and of themselves.
I would like to encourage you to start thinking about what the walls can be which might move you away from the roof form you have or not. Can the walls move in and out somehow? Can/should they emphasize additional thickness in some places? How can they be broken down to reduce the perception of scale relative to a person (this is what I’m most concerned about)? How can the design celebrate the unique wall treatment?
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In many ways I’m looking at where the wall surface treatment is going and I’m reminded of FLW’s Automatic/Usonian houses. But that is also where I’m feeling like you need to consider pushing things a bit more.
With the Automatic houses the design was about using the walls to create space, circulation and views (primarily with a diagonal visual orientation). The walls were manipulated to slide past each other to make openings (doors and windows) and their height was changed to make and emphasis the hierarchy of space. The design was essentially about the walls.
Your house has a quite different parti at this point. It seems to me to be about a box with a roof where the windows and doors are punched into the walls to make openings. The walls are a necessity to create the box – not special in and of themselves.
I would like to encourage you to start thinking about what the walls can be which might move you away from the roof form you have or not. Can the walls move in and out somehow? Can/should they emphasize additional thickness in some places? How can they be broken down to reduce the perception of scale relative to a person (this is what I’m most concerned about)? How can the design celebrate the unique wall treatment?
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