CONTEMPORIST

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 02:25 PM PDT

Architect Robert M. Gurney designed the Buisson Residence overlooking Lake Anna in Virginia.

The journey down a winding road and through a pine tree forest ends at the Buisson Residence. Situated on a grass knoll and commanding views of Lake Anna in Central Virginia, the house emerges as a long, white painted brick wall with a copper clad volume cantilevered above the wall.

The primary organizational elements for this residence are two "L" shaped brick walls connected by a glass enclosed bridge. Mahogany clad walls combine with the smaller "L" to provide a service volume while glass walls combine with the larger "L" to create the primary living spaces and to provide southern and western views toward the lake.

The experience of arrival and the wall are intertwined as the wall establishes a threshold between the pine forest and views toward the lake. Entrance to the house is through the wall and into a space that divides the program of the house into public and private realms.

The entry, living and sleeping spaces are arranged linearly to maximize lake views and to take advantage of the southern exposure. Large overhangs and sensored motorized shades combine to limit heat gain during the summer while allowing the sun to penetrate deep into the interior during the winter.

The second floor roof and exterior walls are wrapped in copper with fully glazed east and west walls inset from the ends of the copper volume. The glazed wall at the east end provides an abundant and high source of light into the double height entry hall while the glazing on the west end provides light to two bedrooms and views of the lake.

A single, large punctuation in the southern copper clad façade allows views from a second floor office. The sloping roof and canted front wall are designed to deflect fierce north wind and shed water from intense storms. The geometric volumes are connected to the landscape both by the views from the interior and accessibility to the outdoors.

Throughout the project detailing is minimal and precise. The spaces are ordered and there is a juxtaposition of solidity and transparency. The rigor of the design, the linear organization of spaces and the continuous presence of the wall provide a sharp and intended contrast to the irregular beauty of the landscape beyond. It is this contrast between an ordered human dimension and an unstructured natural condition that elevates our understanding and appreciation of both.

Visit Robert M. Gurney’s website – here.

Photography by Paul Warchol and Maxwell MacKenzie

On The Corner by EASTERN Design Office

Posted: 24 Oct 2011 04:49 AM PDT

EASTERN Design Office have completed a thin triangular building in Shiga, Japan.

On The Corner by EASTERN Design Office

The site is a manufacturing area in Youkaichi City in Shiga Prefecture. There are many big factories in this town. A lot of immigrants from South America live here among the local people.

This is a residential area as well an industrial area. It is also a popular drinking area where many bars and restaurants for such common people are scattered. There is a highway interchange nearby the town. The shape of the lot is a sharp triangle which is unusual for building a house.

The site is a wedge-shaped flatiron lot which remained at a corner where two streets meet at an acute angel. It was left behind neither residential nor for industrial development. No one wanted to buy it, and the public sector would not invest to change it into a park: a lot remained bereft of life for a long time.

The elevation of this building takes the shape of the triangle plot. It is a triangular residential complex of 13 meters height with the base line 23m x height 12m x oblique line 26m. It is a typical tenanted apartment house with seven rooms, 1-3rd two units on each floor and one on the 4th floor.

Each room is composed of a living room of 13 m2, two bed rooms with 13 m2 and 9m2, a prefabricated bathroom, a kitchen system and a toilet. They are planned to be easy to rent for town people.

The concrete which serves as a structure is designed carefully. Other than that specific materials are not used here. The exterior wall is made out of square cut stone, concrete and glass formed like scattered cards on it. They are bound by a "cross" so that the spread out material would not disjoin.

It looks like a present, a toy box or a castle where the boys and girls of the story of Michael Ende could be entering. It is a triangular building configured by the square elements. The cross confines the power of the mixed materials into one.

A shuffle of stones, concretes, and glass. Keen edge of each material is too sharp. A shuffle of mass and void. The design “on the corner” consists of blue and the cross. A composition of line and plane surface is created by the clearly distinguished edges of the material.

The confusing imagination is created to make the so far disregarded place interesting, which lies at the corner of messy scenery in an inner city

It belongs to no one.
It is nothing.
It does not belong to anything.
It does not belong to any country.

The edge of the triangular pyramid is like a wrecked boat, a fictional tip of a boat as if it were escaping from town. Where on earth is here?

A corner that makes you feel you are nowhere at the end of the world, where no one can go further anymore. It is far from the center of town, a place which makes you wonder where you are. It is a place to make the town to be nowhere but only here, and it makes you feel like a distinguished person.

We want to highlight the discarded lot from the urban framework by emphasizing its shape, building architecture similar to illusion. An illusion required by the town people. Reality that is similar to an illusion that one town has something to do with someone.

It seems as if this illusion deceives people to obscure their eyesight and feel invited to another world. It is pretentious, yet it is surrealistic too.

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Architects: EASTERN Design Office
Location: Shiga,Japan
Completion: 2011
Client: TOYO-KAIHATSU Co., ltd
Site area: 261m2
Total floor area: 567 m2
Structure planning: HOJO STRUCTURE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Photographer: Koichi Torimura
Constructor: Okudakomuten Co., Ltd