a rambling house

by | Jun 28, 2018 | entire buildings

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Sometimes I’ll sit in front of a blank page of my sketchbook, pen in hand, coffee poured, for some time with seemingly no idea of what I’d like to draw, what ideas I’d like to explore – an ‘architect’s block’, if you will.  To break the silence, I might attempt to draw a floor plan of a house I know in a different style (as in this previous post, where I took the Craftsman Gamble House and reinterpreted in in the spirit of Irving Gill), or try my hand at recalling a house long gone from my personal memories and recollections.

Today’s post is an extrapolation of the latter, taking my grandparents’ sprawling home, which started as a simple 1950’s California ranch, but with multiple ad hoc additions over the years.  By placing it on a strict module, the floor plan grew a bit, but I’m happy with the result nonetheless.

A central entry off of a walled kitchen garden opens directly onto a long corridor that acts as the main circulation spine of the home, with a living/music room to the left and a large kitchen to the right.  Further past the living room, the corridor picks up again, with guest bedrooms to each side and a formal library/study at the end.  Past the kitchen, laundry and mud rooms flank the corridor with a large master suite at its end.  A formal dining room connects the living room and the kitchen, while also creating a patio on one side and pool deck on the other.  The detail below is of the central corridor, which meets Edwin Lutyens with Louis Sullivan’s Auditorium Building.

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philip johnson and the rockefellers

by | Jun 7, 2018 | entire buildings, precedent

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In 1950, Philip Johnson completed a townhome in Midtown Manhattan for the Rockefellers.  The simple mid-century modernist gem has become an icon of the halcyon era, with a black steel frame filled with a blind brick first floor and large floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows above, and an open floor plan hiding an exterior courtyard and reflecting pond, with a bedroom suite beyond.

Like most things I enjoy, I’ve re-drawn the project, but on a strict nine-square module and outfitted with a more traditional aesthetic.  The brick, not the steel frame, becomes the driving tectonic, with columns in place of sliding plate doors at the courtyard, which itself is centered on a fountain rather than floating around one.  The rear bedroom suite is more glorified with a full gable where the hip roof of the main house is tucked behind shallow brick parapets.  The front elevation remains rather blind, but trades a single french balcony window for the trio of floor-to-ceiling glass panels.

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