Methodology - cont'd
Morphosis
The Crawford House in Montecito, California by Morphosis is used extensively as a reference in this thesis. It was not chosen as a precedent prior to my initial conceptual work, but as my first drawings were developed, the association with the project became clear.
The Crawford House is described as organic sculpture - an interruption in the landscape. The house employs a hierarchal ordering system using the circle - delineated as massive arching walls that engage the landform - as the controlling element. This thesis project seeks a similar vocabulary and means of tectonic assembly and materiality.
The Crawford House is an architecture driven by conviction - driven by a dialogue between architect and client based on a theory that building is influenced by the contingencies of site. The house is reconfigured by programmatic experimentation in response to the conflicts of site associated with topography and design ideology.
The house is located on a stretch of U.S. 1 between Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The highway runs the edge between the horizontal expanse of the Pacific and the steep vertical of the hills that rise to the east. The visual and sequential approaches to the Crawford House site use the physical landscape to mediate the architecture between what is obvious and what is implied to the viewer.
The driveway is a great arch that sweeps along the side of the hill. The base of the hill provides a panoramic view of the rear façade. A score of contrasting materials and tectonic systems comprise the façade. The uninterrupted axial geometry, that usually draws the eyes in a single direction, is discontinuous and eccentric in the Crawford House. The arch that inscribes the site suggests expansiveness and access to the home. Paradoxically, the public, “official” entrance is secretive and repressed. The visual composition of elements suggests that the house has multiple identities. Thick concrete walls emerge from the driveway. Overlapping planes and volumes anchor the building to the rugged site.
The interiors are revealed through a process of investigation. Circulation through the spaces is orchestrated. Window openings are framed apertures to capture specific views. A lap pool extends towards the ocean, is perpendicular to the structural spine of the house, and is the symbolic fulcrum of the design.
The Crawford House is a series of cartographic strategies (mapped geometry) that define abstract and figurative ideas relative to specific site concerns. A north-south axis was established as part of the site analysis and is the main ordering element. Perpendicular to the main axis is the second organizing element – a series of megalithic pylons that hold the site tightly. In plan they look like vertebrae and evoke solidity and energy. Another element is a fragmented, semicircular wall that follows the curved driveway. The wall acknowledges public and private spatial divides. The wall, in its fragmented parts, functions as an idea more than as a tangible, architectonic form.
The Crawford House is a powerful investigation into architectural improvisation. The house begins to address architecture less as an object and more as performance, whereby the script is revised continually by investigations and perceptions. The house represents the interface of ideas and occupancy, where transitional conditions of habitation and provocative spaces, enable art to occur, recur – and endure.[i]
The Crawford House is relevant to this project for its linear organization along an axis of influence and aperture openings that define and frame views. My project is also similar in compositional nature of the design and use of a great as an organizing and gathering device to bind elements on the site.
[i] Phillips, Patricia C. Morphosis: The Crawford House. New York: Rizzoli International, 1998. (Para-phrased)
20 Website: http://d-sites.net/english/judd.htm.
21 Website: www.gsaa.com/recreation/landsfordcanal.html.
The Crawford House in Montecito, California by Morphosis is used extensively as a reference in this thesis. It was not chosen as a precedent prior to my initial conceptual work, but as my first drawings were developed, the association with the project became clear.
The Crawford House is described as organic sculpture - an interruption in the landscape. The house employs a hierarchal ordering system using the circle - delineated as massive arching walls that engage the landform - as the controlling element. This thesis project seeks a similar vocabulary and means of tectonic assembly and materiality.
The Crawford House is an architecture driven by conviction - driven by a dialogue between architect and client based on a theory that building is influenced by the contingencies of site. The house is reconfigured by programmatic experimentation in response to the conflicts of site associated with topography and design ideology.
The house is located on a stretch of U.S. 1 between Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The highway runs the edge between the horizontal expanse of the Pacific and the steep vertical of the hills that rise to the east. The visual and sequential approaches to the Crawford House site use the physical landscape to mediate the architecture between what is obvious and what is implied to the viewer.
The driveway is a great arch that sweeps along the side of the hill. The base of the hill provides a panoramic view of the rear façade. A score of contrasting materials and tectonic systems comprise the façade. The uninterrupted axial geometry, that usually draws the eyes in a single direction, is discontinuous and eccentric in the Crawford House. The arch that inscribes the site suggests expansiveness and access to the home. Paradoxically, the public, “official” entrance is secretive and repressed. The visual composition of elements suggests that the house has multiple identities. Thick concrete walls emerge from the driveway. Overlapping planes and volumes anchor the building to the rugged site.
The interiors are revealed through a process of investigation. Circulation through the spaces is orchestrated. Window openings are framed apertures to capture specific views. A lap pool extends towards the ocean, is perpendicular to the structural spine of the house, and is the symbolic fulcrum of the design.
The Crawford House is a series of cartographic strategies (mapped geometry) that define abstract and figurative ideas relative to specific site concerns. A north-south axis was established as part of the site analysis and is the main ordering element. Perpendicular to the main axis is the second organizing element – a series of megalithic pylons that hold the site tightly. In plan they look like vertebrae and evoke solidity and energy. Another element is a fragmented, semicircular wall that follows the curved driveway. The wall acknowledges public and private spatial divides. The wall, in its fragmented parts, functions as an idea more than as a tangible, architectonic form.
The Crawford House is a powerful investigation into architectural improvisation. The house begins to address architecture less as an object and more as performance, whereby the script is revised continually by investigations and perceptions. The house represents the interface of ideas and occupancy, where transitional conditions of habitation and provocative spaces, enable art to occur, recur – and endure.[i]
The Crawford House is relevant to this project for its linear organization along an axis of influence and aperture openings that define and frame views. My project is also similar in compositional nature of the design and use of a great as an organizing and gathering device to bind elements on the site.
[i] Phillips, Patricia C. Morphosis: The Crawford House. New York: Rizzoli International, 1998. (Para-phrased)
20 Website: http://d-sites.net/english/judd.htm.
21 Website: www.gsaa.com/recreation/landsfordcanal.html.
posted by Joe Monico, AIA, LEED AP @ 6:23 PM
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