TEAM G - LAYER HOUSE Jim Vlock Building Project A house shelters one from the harshness of environment and the turbulence of the exterior - but to be deemed a home, it must transcend the mere desire for protection to take on qualities of comfort and psychological ease. Given the challenge to design a micro-house in an urban neighborhood, the demand for spatial compactness might imbue a house with the characteristics of a confined fortress rather than those of a comfortable home. Without mediation, an abrupt transition from exterior to interior can carry with it unresolved anxieties of the outside. Our design mediates these concerns by considering the house not as an object upon a lot but instead as a landscape. Through a layering of gardens, inner courts, and differing elevations, the site becomes the house, and the house, the site. The scheme meanders through a shifting exterior landscape to arrive within an interior that in turn borrows exterior views in the creation of perceived spaciousness. Walls perform all the functions of enclosure, all the while unexpectedly expanding space rather than defining boundaries.
M.Arch I 1st Year Spring 2014 1012b Architectural Design Studio Critics: Alan Organschi, et al. In conjunction with Anne Householder, Dov Feinmesser, Kiana Hosseini, Jean Chen, Michelle Chen, Eugene Tan, and Winny Tan