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University Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94301
650.321.6118 sa@studioatkinson.com
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Gerritsen House - Waitaria Bay, New Zealand (unbuilt project, 2005)
Photo montage of house in Waitaria Bay setting. One major aspect of the design is the stark, perfunctory cantilevered deck, which faces out over the adjacent Bay.
Upper floor plan.
Lower floor plan.
The symmetry and balance of the house is similar to that of an outrigger canoe. The central canoe or body is symmetrical, while the outrigger is decided asymmetrical. While very functional, I have unconsciously considered the outrigger canoe to be abrupt, clunky and unsatisfactory at an aesthetic level. However, with consideration and time, I've come to find the diagram deeply satisfying. Perhaps best described by the aesthetic implication of the missing symmetrical limb?
For example in Le Corbusier's famous, Maison La Roche in Paris (right) the floor plan is fairly enigmatic culminating in the curved-walls gallery at the end of the composition. The house has lot's of pleasing symmetries. The most satisfying and deep symmetry in the house is the unseen one of the phantom, missing wing that is only alluded to. An early sketch of the house (left) actually documents this missing, symmetrical wing. The pink part of the plan is my addition to make things clearer.
Overall view of photo montage with two of owner's cows in foreground.
Main view over cantilevered deck out towards Waitaria Bay.
The above view is an idealized representation of only the concrete, or permanent, bones of the house. The house is an essay between concrete and glass. If you think of the concrete components as "permanent" and the infill elements as "temporary", it makes poetic sense to imagine how the house might look as a ruin, when all the glass elements are long gone. In this way, it is intended that the concrete elements are the main holders of meaning and poetry.
In considering the spirit of the poem, "Ozymandias", can one design a building in consideration of it eventually being a ruin?
Ozymandias I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away
A similar formal essay of permanence and impermanence was a major theme in the Zachary House. Poetically, one was intended to imagine that one day the wood house would have long ago rotted away leaving only the masonry chimney spike as a poetic marker of the house that once was. Little did I know this would literally happen within 10 years! (right). (left) Axonometric drawing of the Zachary House chimney as free-standing, sculptural object.
In one of Alvar Aalto's houses in France (left), cascading terracing stairs make a gesture towards the infinite. As though the terraces might go on and on. In Aalto's own vacation home, or experimental house, early studies show a tail of architectural essays perhaps suggesting the primordial.
Louis Kahn's architecture often replicated the poetics of the ruin a bit more literally, though no less beautifully. (left) Exeter Library, by Louis Kahn, and (right) market street in the Market of Trajan, Rome.
Large, terraces march down towards the water from the house. It's expected the effect of terraces can be realized more efficiently with far less concrete than shown in the rendering. In fact, the terraces may visually appear to crumble and disappear as they progress downhill.
View from uphill entry terrace. The entry door is in red. Note, there is a staircase with adjacent bookshelf in foreground that leads down to bedroom wing.
Study of possible, oversized glass, patio doors. Note, in the above image all the doors are rolled back to fully open the interior. A tempered glass guardrail remains. (inset) Shows the same patio doors in the closed position. In both open and closed position, the gray, swinging door still allows access to the cantilevered deck. |
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The Gerritsen House featured in Architectural Record magazine
The Gerritsen House featured in book entitled, Young Americans
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