photo: Maziar Behrooz
Roof tip touching a cloud
Architecture is an act of art, a phenomenon that calls up emotions, outside of and beyond the issues in construction. Construction is to stand up; architecture is to move.
-Le Corbusier
The owners of a private home in East Hampton, full time residents, commissioned us to add four bedrooms, a library, a wine tasting area with a wine cellar, outdoor covered patios for the practice of yoga and caretaker’s quarters to their current home. The existing house, designed by Alfred de Vido and built about 9 years ago, was to be disturbed as little as possible and the connection between the two minimal.
The property is adjacent to farm fields and is within an agricultural overlay district. It included an adjacent abandoned house that was to be demolished. The location of the addition was to be to the north of the existing house requiring us to address its shadow.
Our challenge was to add to the existing house without diminishing its presence (even though the addition was larger than the existing house) while addressing the agricultural identity of the neighboring farms.
Our solution addresses both the architectural and environmental concerns simultaneously. We propose to literally reframe the house using a series of terracing garden roofs allowing the existing house to have the sole peak roof structure on the site. At the same time, a series of horizontal wrap-around planters, hung from roof overhangs, are to provide a natural vegetation screen that provides shade in the summer months and solar penetration in the winter months.
The point of connection to the existing house is minimal and transparent. The materials change at the point of intersection of the two structures to rusted steel; reflecting the texture of old farm equipment and becoming, like hinges on a barn door, a hinge to the new addition.
The formal logic of the new building is complimentary but distinct from the existing. The order of the new house is informal and non-orthogonal in contrast to the calm geometric order of the existing house.
Because of the extended overhangs of the addition and the demolition of the abandoned structure, after our project is completed, we will have contributed close to 10,000 sf of green surface area to the existing land.