a blast from the past
“I love this house. It’s a testament to wonderful design. And it’s a beautiful refuge—like a spaceship tucked up in the woods.”
facing page/top: The ILZRO house was way ahead of its time in terms of accessibility. Sinks and kitchen work surfaces are at a height accessible to people in wheelchairs, but equally comfortable to other users. The research that went into creating this kitchen fed to a subsequent five-year project Harrison led two decades later—to design a Universal Kitchen as accessible to users with disabilities as to the able-bodied.
— longtime owner and Professor Emerita Lorraine Howes
In the early 1970s, Industrial Design students and faculty designed and built an amazing experimental house in the woods of Foster, RI. Under the leadership of Professor Marc Harrison, a pioneer in the field of universal design who has since passed away, the department landed funding for a five-year research and development project sponsored by the International Lead Zinc Research Organization (ILZRO), a trade association for mining companies.
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Made of galvanized steel, lead and zinc, the resulting house—an 1,100-sf single-level structure—was something of an early precursor to the shipping container homes and offices being constructed today. But ultimately, the ILZRO house became much more than a futuristic experiment in universal design: It became the dream home of Professor Emerita Lorraine Howes, the longtime head of Apparel Design, who has lived there since 1979.
images courtesy of RISD Archives
Metal Home Ahead of its Time