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Monthly Archive for April, 2007
Main entry from Woodlawn Avenue
During the 2005 AIA Venice Home Tour, I got the chance to visit the Solar Umbrella House. I was interested by the way the architect and owner, Lawrence Scarpa, integrated a new addition to an existing 1920’s one story bungalow. Soon after, I contacted him to discuss on the image, identity and integration of his house.
Here is my interview with Lawrence Scarpa of Pugh + Scarpa Architecture
Pictures by Marvin Rand
Continue reading ‘Solar Umbrella House, Pugh+Scarpa Architecture’
Concept Diagram
Fundamentally the house is our shelter, but it is also a place of appropriation, where we create our identities and our memories. An interface with the world, the home is a device in which we filter our environment and transfer information about ourselves to others. Our proposal for the plan-less house seeks to create a simple system of movable elements which together yield almost an infinite combination of spatial configurations. The idea of the home is no longer a plan diagram indicating a hierarchy of divisions, but a set of variables which creates a flexible system adapting to the user. Now a more interesting and complex exchange and interaction can occur, one in which the inhabiter(s) can constantly re-appropriate, re-territorialize space as needed. The house conceptually becomes a stage set, in which many activities and storylines take place simultaneously in the same “space” and can also be reconfigured for different “scenes.” A mutable code for living, the plan-less house fulfills the need for the spatial complexity which our lifestyles demand.
Continue reading ‘Plan-Less House, OFA’
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In 2004, “Open Form Architecture” was created by three intern architects – Maxime Moreau, Maurice Martel and Darrel Ronald.
We are an eclectic group of friends whose lives have crossed in many different places and spaces throughout the years. Including our core group, we have had many special, exciting collaborations with friends from around the world.
Even though we have lived in different countries and continents, we are excited to announce that we have registered our studio in the province of Quebec, Canada. Since registering in a French province, we are legally titled: Architecture Open Form. Both the English and French names will be in use!
Thank you for you support through all these years.
In 2006, I participated at the NKS Summer School, which was a defining experience. The topic of my research was THE SPACE BETWEEN THE CELLULAR AUTOMATA: Reworking the Spatial Division in Architecture. During the last year, I continued to explore this idea and used it in various international architectural competitions entries, such as the Plan-Less House (Japan) and The Stockholm Library (Sweden).This summer, I will participate for a second time to the NKS Summer School at the University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt. During this year’s program I will advance my research by exploring Network Structures in architecture.
As Steven Wolfram argues, “Space is a giant network of nodes” we see that, as opposed to the metropolises of the twentieth century, contemporary society produces Networks of Cities. These cities work simultaneously on their internal renovation, increasing their efficiency from within, while they organize themselves territorially in the form of a NETWORK OF CITIES.
Continue reading ‘Network Structures in Architecture’
Existing house
The Box House replaces one of several California-modern homes built in a 1950’s planned development in Portola Valley, California. This neighborhood was laced with walking trails and mature landscape that helped separate the closely sited dwellings that were based on a style celebrating inside/outside qualities of living. Within this constructed environment, fabricated on conventional mid-twentieth century notion of “modern living,” the house found itself in direct dialogue with past and contemporary notions of landscape, dwelling, and the functions of the “modern” home.
The interaction of public and private space within the home — always a programmatic concern — was heightened in this case. Yet the clients also desired privacy from the surrounding neighborhood while opening the house to desirable landscape elements. The challenge was then to provide privacy within the house from the outside neighborhood while allowing for free flowing public spaces. Public spaces engage and create an active dialogue with both distance landscape views and the temperate Northern Californian climate.
Street facade, Photo by Tim Griffith
The solution that emerged was a 2900 square foot house focused on the architectural articulation of its public and private spaces as well as its materials. An elevated volume of bedrooms is contained within a wood clad box. The box is rotated on the site annexing the space of an adjacent easement. Held above the public spaces of the house, the bedrooms are located relative to the view in and out to the site. Hillside views are framed while the views to the neighborhood are blocked and filtered by the detailing of the wood screen.
The wood box is structured by a series of linear site walls that stretch the length of the site. These richly colored plaster piers create a distinct directional field across the site that becomes the walls of the living, dining and studio spaces on the lower level. An infill window and panel system completes the enclosure while allowing for large openings to the garden and terrace areas.
In the end, the Box House responds to its individual site and clients’ needs, as well as to the typical suburban conditions. Overall, the public and private spaces of the house come together.
Section and Plan
Located on a corner site at 17th and Hope streets in downtown Los Angeles, the project proposes a 6-story apartment building that includes approximately 87 efficiency units of senior affordable housing, community recreation room, communal dining room, kitchen, laundry, and administrative spaces. The site is adjacent to a freeway on-ramp connecting to the 10/110 Freeway interchange and is within blocks of the Staples Convention Center to the west and the California Hospital Medical Center to the north. The transitional character of its location at the edge of downtown and adjacency to the freeway requires the project address environmental factors such as safety, noise, and privacy.
Continue reading ‘New Carver Apartments’
(Johnson House street facade)
THE EVOLUTION OF LOS ANGELES
The image and identity of Los Angeles architecture, especially its housing typology can best be understood through the evolution of the city as a cultural entity.
Los Angeles always has been a metropolis with great distinctions and as Michael Webb has stated: “Los Angeles has lured the struggling and the ambitious from all around the world.” For architects, the city is a unique territory to test news forms, programs and arrangements as well as to explore audacious and eccentric building design.
Continue reading ‘Johnson House, Johnson Fain Architects’
Impossible to express in plan due to the constrained size of the site, this 2400sf residence diverges from the pre-established response to front and back yards by balanced articulation of the skin on all faces in the vertical direction.
Continue reading ‘Vertical House, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects’