Frank LLoyd Wright - Spring 2020

Assignment 2: Usonian Home

ARC342D - FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: Sustainable Organic Design

by Tristan Schaeffer

Fig 01. View from the master’s suite to the bedroom wing and living room, showing the rock formation that the architect wanted to preserve and the landscape.

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FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT Norman Lykes House, Saguaro Canyon, Arizona, 1959

The Norman Lykes House was built in 1959, on a steep desert landscape in Arizona, overlooking Phoenix. The house is the last of Wright’s career, and is designed following a circular geometry, that roots the house in its terrain and offers dramatic views to the mountains and the city below.

When Norman Lykes contacted Wright to build his house in 1958, the architect already had built number of houses, but also buildings with a circular plan.

Norman Lykes, a shipping magnate, built this house for himself, his wife and his two children. He expressed the request for the house to include a workhop, in order for him to pursue his inventions, and indicated a cost of $55,000, which was a rather consequent sum regarding Wright’s other clients. The architects encouraged his clients to find a more challenging terrain, dismissing some of his clients’ first proposal for being not beautiful and bold enough. The architect started working on the plans in March 1959, making this building one of the last he designed before his death on April 9. Wright’s Taliesin associate John Rattenbury hence was the one who finished the building. The first design was laid out by Wright according to the contour lines, with the intention to preserve some of the sites beautiful rock formations. He drew two embracing circles, that would be the living room and the garden court, which would be walled off for privacy but would still allow for a view towards the mountains and the bedroom would wrap around the hillside, offering a view for each room.

John Rattenbury finished the presentation drawings on his own, but the realization of the house was postponed until 1963. The house was finished in 1968, and ended up costing $140,000. Rattenbury added a circular office above the workspace, and a workshop off the entry. During the building process, a great care was taken to protect the site, by hand digging the footings and hand carrying the concrete blocks from the bottom of the mountain.

Front Page. Photograph of the house in its site, with the mountains in the background. The house appears to be growing out of the rocks as part of the desert landscape.

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The house takes advantage of its outstanding location by opening up a largely glazed facade towards the view, while being protected from its neighbors. Despite its rather elevated cost, the house still follows some principles of the Usonian home. The Usionian concept was developped around the ideas of affordable housing, standardized production, adaptative design and evolved from its starting in the late 1930’s, responding to social evenements such as the Great Depression and the Second World War. Wright advocates for an american style, a design method to provide the american middle class housing that responds to the modern needs, while being integarted in its surrounding and taking advantage of natural lighting. Some of the distinctive features of the usonian concept are zoned plans, single story houses with flat rooves and large overhangs, the use of natural lighting devices such as clerestories to create a singular and qualitative space, an open kitchen, also called workspace, small service cores and a carport. All of these characteristics mark a strong discrepency between Wright’s prairie homes from the begining of the century and the usonian homes. This analysis will therefore show how the Norman Lykes House applies the principles of organic architecture while being a usonian home.

Fig 02. Floor plan and section

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1. Carport 2. Walled off garden court 3. Entrance 4. Living area 5. Workspace/service core 6. Children’s bedrooms 7. Master’s suite 8. Workshop

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Fig 03. View from the driveway, showing the reletioship between the house and its landscape, and the garden court being protected from the views.

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Fig 04. View of the garden court.

The swimming pool was not part of Wright’s design. The openings are following the circular design of the house.

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The Principles of Usonian Architecture

Fig 05. Photograph of the living room, showing the built in banquette, the clerestory and the furniture. The interior and furniture is made of Philippine mahogany wood.

The Norman Lykes House applies the principles of organic architecture and usonian design that Wright developped all along is career. The building follows the keys commandments of organic architecture in the following ways: the openings are part of structure, as the gap between the vertical plan of the concrete wall and the horizontal plane of the roof. However, the openings in the main service core and in the garden wall don’t follow that principle, but their circulat geometry keeps the whole united. Integrated furniture, such as a built-in banquette are part of the building, keeping the rule of simplicity and respose. The fireplace bears a central role in the main living area with its massive appearance, that is here again keeping harmony inb the design with its circular geometry. The house responds to the individual needs of the Lykes family, offering a large bedroom wing for the children and a workshop for Mr Lykes, as the notion of individuality suggests. The building grows out of its surrounding, gently wrapping around the landscape to preserve it, while the tainted concrete make it seem like part of the rocky hillside, keeping a sense of harmony with nature.

The use of wood highlights on the furniture or the clerestory keeps a balanced color palette, contratsing with a bright outside washed by the sun. The massive aspect of the concrete walls brings out the nature of the material as well as taking advantage of the thermal properties of such a structure. The house stands therefore as a gracious wing over the landscape, true and sincere with its own character. But it also follows Wright’s later principles of the usonian home. The house follows a clearly zoned plan, with circles defining the different functions in the house: the living room, the garden, the workspace, the bedroom wing and the master’s suite. The flat rooves with large overhangs protect the interior from the dull desert sun while chanelling the wind to ensure cooling through air circulation. The choice of concrete as an inexpensive material with interesting thermal properties roots the building in its environnement. The use of clerestories and large glazed facades to bring natural light in all the parts of the house also participates in the design of the efficient and beautifuly simple design of usonian houses. Service cores house the servant spaces of the house such as the workspace, but also support the large rooves of the house. The plan follows a L-shape layout that allows for privacy and intimacy as well as a connecting moment that articulates the building and offers the central functions of the home. The carport is also present, as a sign that the usonian home is responding to contemporary needs, while keeping a sense of simplicity and austerity.

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Fig 06. Master’s bedroom space, opening to the view with a largely glazed facade and a balcony. The large overhang of the roof protects the interior from the intense sun of the desert.

Fig 07. View of the fireplace and the living area, showing the clerestory allowing for natural light in the room. The fireplace geometry recalls the design of the Guggenheim in New York City.

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Fig 08. Simple composition: The plan is composed

around living spacs contained in circles The dark blue circle contains the living room and intersects the garden court in green, the bedroom wing in light blue and the service core in pink. The purple circles define the fireplace and the staircase. The master’s suite is at the end of the bedroom wing and contained in the yellow circle, while the driveway is outlined by the red circle.

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The composition doesnt seem to follow a grid but it responds to the program and the site. The bedroom wing is curved to orient the view towards the valley and preserve the rock formation (visible in the Fig 04.). The circular shape allows for a centered space and the intersections between them create another grain of space.

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Fig 09. Circle Directionality: Following the main

composition’s circle, the arrows show the different directionality created by the circles. While the spaces are contained in these circles and are therefore directed towards the center and the interior, the large bedroom wing circle directs the space towards the outside and the view. The diagram shows how the plan was composed around the spaces and their directions.

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This diagram also breaks down the different uses, showing how Wright’s plan is zoned in defined rooms: the garden, the living space, the workspace, the bedroms and the driveway with the carport. The residence is clearly separated between the living spaces as intersecting circles and the bedroom wong stretching out to gain privacy and view, while inserting in the topography and preserving the existing site.

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Fig10. Complex composition: The following

diagram investigates the different circles and how their composition relates to each other. The center of the circles are placed on other circles, showing how the composition principle works. It also highlights the relationship between the different spaces: the carport is in its own circle, while the garden circle interacts with the living room and the fountain.

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The living room is related to the workspace and service cores. The bedroom wing and master’s suite are stretching in their own direction. The concentric circles are used to draw all the elements of the house, from steps and overhanging rooves to structural walls.

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Fig11. Plan disposition: The plan follows one

of Wright’s usonian plan layout, by adopting a L-shaped plan, highlited in red. The concrete walls close off the house from the neighbors view uphill, to keep privacy in the living areas and in the walled off garden, while opening widely towards the view of the valley and Phoenix.

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The cores are highlightes by the red circles. These cores serve both a structural and a programmatic purpose. While they house the servant spaces, such as the kitchen, or workspace, the bathrooms, staircases or utilities, they also ensure the structural integrity of the building by holding the large overhanging rooves.

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Fig 12. Transversal section: This section is cut

through the carport, the garden court, the service core and the living room. It highlights some of the usonian principles developped by Wright. The flat rooves with large overhangs allows for controlled sun exposure, especially on the southern facade that is facing most of Arizona’s intense sun. The clerestory allows for reflected natural light to penetrate in the living room.

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The large built-in banquette that follows the curvature of the living room glazed facade is another distinctive element of Wright’s usonian design. The fireplace has a central place in the main area, with its imposing diameter and its staggered appearance that reminds of the Giggenheim’s design. The two story round core houses a round workspace, or open kitchen on the ground floor, while housing an office space upstairs, that can be accessed through the round staircase in the entry space.

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Slight height differences are visible between the different rooms: the entry lobby is slightly higher than the living room, and two steps separate the terrace and the living room from the garden court, while the bedroom wing is significantly lower, marking the separation of the different programmatic areas of the house. The concrete block structure is visible on the section, desert rose tinted concrete blocks being used as an inexpensive building material blending the house in its rocky surroundings.

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Sources: «Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian Houses, the case for organic architecture», John Sergeant,1976 «Wright Sized Houses, Frank Lloyd Wright’s solutions for making small houses feel big, Diane Maddex, 2003

Photograph Credits: https://www.livinspaces.net/design-and-style/livin-homes/inside-the-norman-lykes-house-the-last-residence-designed-by-franklloyd-wright/

https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/buildings/frank-lloyd-wrightdesigned-norman-lykes-house-is-back-on-the-market_o https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/for-sale-frank-lloyd-wright-houses http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Artifact%20Pages/Lykes.htm

Fig 13. This plan is the electrical plan of the house, showing the plan of the room upstairs and the basement Last page. Photographs of the house right after the completion of its construction

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