MONTH January 2012
Architectural Regionalism and Modern House Design
A December 30, 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal‘s Friday Journal focused on architectural regionalism and its reemergence in house design. After decades in which well known architects designed houses that could be seen as idiosyncratic homages to their previous artistic preoccupations and that paid little attention to local climatic realities, architects (and their clients!) are once again finding joy and artistic inspiration in the house’s local surroundings and reinterpreting local traditions in fresh, inventive ways. We can only hope that this catches on with mass production and speculative house builders, which represents the vast majority of our country’s new housing stock…
Below are two houses that illustrate a preoccupation with important regional architectural issues. Additional images of Ruhl Walker’s Westport River House can be seen on our portfolio website. The Hawai`i house was designed by Rhoady Lee Architecture + Design (RWA happily provided production assistance!), and additional images can be seen on their website, with photos by Linny Morris.
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- A house on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, designed by Rhoady Lee Architecture + Design, has deep roof overhangs to protect the house from too much solar heat gain, and takes advantage of local trade winds with its expansive lanais. All wood is locally sourced, as are the lava rock walls. Photo Credit: Linny Morris
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- In New England, as in this Ruhl Walker house in Westport, MA, we also need to protect our houses from harsh summer sun with roof overhangs, but they need to be designed to also allow for abundant winter sunlight to enter the house to passively warm the house. Windows can be opened to allow for ample natural ventilation, but most windows are fixed in place to maximize energy efficiency (and views, which aren’t marred by window screens!).
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- In Rhoady Lee’s Big Island House, enormous walls of glass (detailing assistance by Ruhl Walker’s Sandra Baron and Lilly Smith) mechanically slide out of the way to open the house up to the cool ocean breezes, and to allow for uninterrupted access to the house’s lushly landscaped grounds. Photo Credit: Rhoady Lee Architecture + Design, Linny Morris.
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- In our Westport house, we have a more transitional connection between inside and outside, with the main living space opening up to a large screened living space, which in turn opens to a raised deck, then down wide steps (wide enough for sitting as well as carrying trays of drinks!) to the yard and ultimately the Westport River. Alas, we have mosquitoes, green flies, rain, and snow!
Maurizio Cattelan: All at the Guggenheim New York
Did you see the recent Maurizio Cattelan show, “All”, at New York’s Guggenheim? While the Guggenheim is a favorite of many architects, it has often been criticized for the inherent difficulty of hanging art on its curved walls, to be viewed from spiraling ramps. Fortunately, as the museum passes its fiftieth anniversary, art sometimes seems to be catching up to it, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s rotunda has inspired more than a few amazing site-specific installations. Cattelan’s assemblage of hanging objects has to be one of the best.
See Aaron Seward’s recent article on how the exhibit was hung, “Get A Rope” in The Architect’s Newspaper here.
Credits:
The Guggenheim Museum: http://www.guggenheim.org
The Architect’s Newspaper: http://www.archpaper.com/
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- Maurizio Cattelan’s sculpture,“All”, at New York’s Guggenheim. Cattelan really takes advantage of Frank Lloyd Wright’s tour de force, the Guggenheim’s central Rotunda. Credit: Guggenheim Museum
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- Museum goers rotate up, down and around Cattalan’s sculpture on Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiraling ramps. “All” is an assemblage of representations of all of Cattelan’s work since 1989. Photo: Molly Heinz, AN
Blurring inside and outside with opening walls!
Having worked on several cool projects in Hawai‘i over the last few years, our eyes have really been opened to architectural possibilities that rarely exist in New England. For example, we collaborated with Rhoady Lee Architecture and Design on the Big Island on a new house near the Four Seasons at Hualalai that had custom motorized rolling walls of glass and teak (detailed by our own Sandra Baron and Lilly Smith!) that disappear into lava rock walls, opening virtually every room in the house to trellised lanais, an edge-less pool, lushly landscaped courtyards, and sweet tropical breezes. So, how can we introduce these exotic possibilities to the custom houses we design in New England?
One answer is through bi-folding glass walls from companies like Nanawall, and we’ve designed several recent houses that utilize their exceptional technology. Our clients wanted to have large screened porches so they could live outdoors spring, summer and fall without the ubiquitous New England mosquitoes and flies, and wondered how they might join those porches to the rest of the house. Voila, we proposed Nanawall doors and something that has traditionally been a barrier in older New England houses becomes an opportunity. Added benefit: makes a great party house even better!
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- This bi-folding wall of glass and aluminum slides easily to the left, opening up the living/dining space to a large screen porch. Photo: Peter Vanderwarker
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- Compared to conventional sliding glass doors, bi-folding wall openings can be much wider within the same unit width. Photo: Peter Vanderwarker
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- Living / dining and screen porch become one; ready to entertain! Photo: Peter Vanderwarker
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- Who would want to interrupt views like this with conventional doors?! Photo: Peter Vanderwarker
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- A twenty-one foot wide Nanawall system for a house under construction in Lincoln, MA; this spring the happy homeowners will be able to combine their living space seamlessly to their new screen porch.
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- A view of the bi-folding wall from the exterior, showing the factory-finished aluminum clad finish on the exterior, while the interior is natural wood; so many options!
Modern Hawaiian Lanais (part II, hotels)
After a very long, exhausting day flying from Boston to the Big Island of Hawai‘i, and after a bizarre drive across seemingly endless miles of lava – usually at night with little sense of scale – harried visitors are often welcomed by a warm “aloha”, friendly faces, cool towels, fresh guava juice, and hotels unlike anything most of us have seen before. Who knew that hotels didn’t really need walls? As with Hawaiian houses, the main public spaces of most Hawaiian hotels are essentially large open air lanais; no screens as you would find in the Caribbean since flying insects are less prevalent in Hawai‘i, and it is rare to see the discrete bi-folding shutters or sliding skylights closed. The next morning you wake up, and you see views like those below. Pure heaven! And fresh ideas for how these design possibilities might translate into our own work on custom vacation houses in New England…
Credits:
Mauna Kea Beach Resort: Mauna Kea Beach Hotel
Four Seasons Hualalai: Four Seasons Resort At Hualalai
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- One of William Ruhl’s (principal of Ruhl Walker Architects) favorite hotels on the Big Island is the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, designed by SOM and completed in 1965. All of the public spaces are cooled naturally by being designed without walls, taking advantage of the trade winds and natural convection, and allowing uninterrupted views of the magnificent coastline.
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- One of Mauna Kea’s open air restaurants, Manta, overlooking Kauna‘oa Beach, one of Hawaii’s most breath-taking beaches. And yes, you do occasionally run into manta rays as you snorkel, and during dinner.
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- The inversely-stepped profile of the Mauna Kea’s main lobby enhances the natural cooling of the space, with cool breezes flowing freely and warm air disappearing through the roof openings.
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- The main stair of the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, looking down to its spectacular beach and crystal clear waters. Photo credit: Jeff Green
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- Another favorite hotel on the Big Island is the Four Seasons Hualalai. As with many other Hawaiian hotels, all public spaces are open air, with bi-folding screen and/or glass panels providing protection during the occasional inclement weather. Above and to the right is Pahu i‘a restaurant, directly on the beach. Just magnificent…
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- Without walls, views are infinite and fresh air is abundant.
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- The Four Season’s lobby is a separate pavilion (“hale” in Hawaiian) which is essentially open to the elements but does have sliding and bi-folding glass doors in case of (rare) inclement weather.
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- You have to look pretty hard to see the glass and mahogany doors in the main lobby (lanai) of the Four Seasons. Furnishings are perhaps a bit too faux-historic, but sure are comfortable…
Modern Hawaiian Lanais (Part I, houses)
Having just returned from the Big Island of Hawai‘i – the first time in five years not related at least partially to working with the Hawai‘i Wildlife Center – I still have Hawai‘i on my mind… It doesn’t help that the temperatures dipped into single digits this weekend, with wind chills below zero!
Architects have a hard time traveling without focusing obsessively on local architecture, and Hawaii’s – the openness to the elements, the blurring of inside and outside, the direct link to Asian architecture in both form and spatial flow – is particularly alluring. One key element is the “lanai”, a term first used in Hawai‘i in the early eighteenth century, and elsewhere known generically as a porch or veranda. The Hawaiian Islands are well known for their steady tropical breezes, a benefit and sometimes curse of being located so remotely in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Hawaiian lanais are often a house’s primary living space, and provide much needed shade and help Hawaiian buildings breathe by catching the trade winds and using that constant supply of fresh, naturally cooled (by the Pacific) air to remove hotter, more stagnant air. Below are a few of my favorite examples of modern lanais.
Send us your own images and thoughts! And look forward to future posts showing how we bring this “exotic” knowledge to our New England projects!
Credits:
Belzberg Architects, Santa Monica, CA: Belzberg Architects
Olson Kundig Architects, Seattle, WA: Olson Kundig Architects
Craig Steeley Architecture, San Francisco, CA: Craig Steely Architecture
Legoretta + Legoretta, Mexico: Legorreta + Legorreta
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- An abstract, open air entry lanai at a house designed by Belzberg Architects; with less than 10” of precipitation a year, shade is more critical than protection from rain.
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- Deep roof overhangs and a raised infinity-edged pool help keep this lanai cool. Credit: Belzberg Architects
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- This lanai is defined by two stone and glass walls and a narrow lap pool; the walls are tall enough to provide ample shade, and the shape of the space helps funnel fresh air through. Credit: Belzberg Architects
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- Opposite view of the same lanai shown on the left; note the lanai’s modern “trellis” ceiling, which helps create shade while also allowing warm air to escape between the wood beams. Credit: Belzberg Architects
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- A house on the Big Island of Hawaii designed by Olson Kundig Architects. Its primary lanai is located between the main living space and guest suites.
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- View of the lanai, which flows into the main living space. Credit: Olson Kundig Archtiects
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- This house, designed by Craig Steeley Architecture, has a screened lanai on the upper floor.
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- Inside Steeley’s screened lanai; note the floor boards, which are held apart to enhance natural ventilation.
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- Another house by Craig Steeley Architecture, with the open air lanai separating the main house and a separate studio.
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- The ceiling of this lanai is raised slightly to allow warmer air to rise up through the gap and be replaced by cooler, fresh air brought by the trade winds. Yes, that is lava…
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- A house by Ricardo Legoretta on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii. The continuous lanai protects the house from intense western sunlight and allows ever space to flow freely towards the ocean terraces.
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- Legoretta’s lanai utilizes a small salt water plunge pool to help keep the space cool, the steady sea breezes being cooled as they blow across the water.
Just as construction of our Mystic Lake house was winding down, the neighbor’s house was demolished and construction began on their own new house; what goes around, comes around! And soon winter will have to arrive presumably; other than an odd snowfall around Halloween we’ve escaped so far. So, we will have to wait to do a full (professional) photo shoot until spring. In the meantime, our client shared the lovely photos below.
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- The house settles into its lake-side site, a collage of discrete volumes stepping down to the steeply sloping lawn.
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- The glassy living room volume seen from the lake.
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- The house is built close to the street to maximize the size of the yard on the lake side; by spring we should start seeing the re-naturalized landscaping designed by Matthew Cunningham.
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- With time, the front yard will grow up to screen much of the front of the house, merging house and landscape. You can see additional information on Matthew’s design in our August 30, 2011 blog post.
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- The cantilevered living room volume hovers above the lake-side yard. We wanted to keep the footprint of the lower level as small as possible, hence the cantilevered volumes of the main living spaces; this also helps reduce and control the scale of the house on the lake side, which would otherwise have felt too massive.
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- The glassy living room volume is on the left, and the home office and master bedroom roof deck are within the smaller volume on the right; between these is the main deck, with wide steps leading down to the yard and a lower terrace.
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- The five foot wide steps lead down to a lower terrace with hot tub, and to granite steps set into the hill that lead down to the lake.
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- The glassy living room cube hovers above Mystic Lake. From inside you really feel like you are floating on the lake.
