Prototypes

Using building blocks of the typical American tract house, we asked not only what types of spaces they could contain, but what types of spaces they could create – a change not so much in architectural configuration, but in lifestyle. We wanted to return to utilitarian simplicity and a model of living large in a smaller home.

There were three basic principles in mind with the design of these prototype houses. Everybody should have a fruit tree – sweet fragrance, an idea of abundance, and a small token of a good life in one package. Houses should be about quiet, protected places – places that can be marked by the track of the sun and dimensioned with shadow. Houses need to breathe – in this day and this climate, a house needs to embrace the out and make it part of the in.

Prototype A COMPLETED 2010

The courtyard plan is borrowed from a history much older and more profound than the faux craftsman details that pass for cultural continuity in these communities. This courtyard will be the voice of the house and the spatial turn of the phrase in this experiment.

Prototype B COMPLETED 2012

The split level stack has been arranged around the hinge of outdoor space. The house grounds itself by sinking slightly at the garage and builds in fan arrangement with a series of volumes that reference the former and informs the next.