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PORTFOLIO 2 - a New Facade/a New Image

Requirements

This project is the smallest fragment I designed, but incorporates aspects of all design problems I've encountered. The given context was a visually chaotic small scale "ranch-style" house whose front comprised a three-window living room marked by a visually weak gable roof and append­aged on either side by an inadequate entry and an ill-proportioned screen porch, whose roof leaked.             ·

The site context located the project at the conjunction of two streets oriented in different grids, such that the primary view was to a small park-like median resulting from their intersection. The owners wanted to reorganize an entry sequence, recognizing both pedestrian approach from the street and vehicular entrance from the adjacent drive. They also wanted to make use of the living room and upgrading the visual image of the house. A major constraint on any intervention was that no interior space could extend forward of the face of the existing living room, although the local Code permitted an unenclosed addition.

Solution

The resolution of all these conditions consisted of a layered zone of exterior and interior elements, activating the entire front area of the house. A regular geometry was superimposed across the facade and a progression of spatial gridding establishes the density of this zone, integrating new and existing spaces as one continuous fabric.  The variation in the formal treatment of the entry elaborates this singular element by a rich texture of space, light, and color through minor moves away from the regularity of the basic geometry. In addition to its solution of formal problems, the intervention evokes a sense of outdoor living appropriate to the specific context, climate and culture of having a "neighborly" front porch under the Loggia trellis.

'CLICK' on images for Caption and to review in Sequence.

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