St Lucia House Exemplar

PART A

1. Stretto House - Steven Holl Architects
2. Brookes St House - James Russell Architect
3. St Lucia House - Elizabeth Watson Brown Architects

These three houses that have been researched will all follow the same format that explores the notion that a house can be discussed through three categories:

1. A House Is An Environmental Filter
2. A House Is A Container For Human Activities
3. A House Is A Delightful Experience

Brookes St. House - James Russell Architect

Figure 1. http://www.patrickbingham-hall.com/jamesrussell.html

This spectacular house is located in the heart of brisbane city tucked in between two heritage listed buildings surrounded by busy streets. Architect James Russell created this modern, raw, cubby-like home for a family of four (Russell. 2006).

As an environmental filter this house as many aspects to it. The home was designed with a plan to create a green inner sanctum amidst two busy city street. Russell captured this sanctum by developing a small grass court with the house wrapped around three sides of the court. The fourth side is a combination of a heritage listed church and stained glass windows. Once walking through the small entrance of the house you are greeted by this landscape enclosure brightly light by the open sky. Russell explains, “‘Inside’ and ‘outside’ are deliberately ambiguous. The external environment is filtered through a series of layers so that harsh extremes are tempered and the occupants are held and nurtured by the building." (Hill. 2006)

Another aspect to the environmental filter is the timber push-out flaps on the upper level windows. This allows for further protection from the sun and rain. This house truly embraces its surroundings allowing for maximum natural light.

The Brookes St house also can be seen as a container for human activities. The spacial zoning that Russell used when designing this house, separates public space from private pace in a clever way. Russell said, “The plan has two discrete elements – a communal kitchen/meals/living space and a bedroom block. Each element is connected via a promenade deck. To move from element to element and from room to room one has to go outside and then inside thereby being exposed to the heat of summer and the extremes of winter. This strategy was requested by the client as a way of using the weekend house to re-humanise oneself after a week of office work.” (Hill. 2006)

When venturing through this house it easy to overwhelmed by its beauty. This house is best described as a delightful experience. “The courtyard, a rich rectangle of lush grass at its centre, abuts the church with a perimeter of concrete and timber planks, its floor level established from the height of the church windows. 1889 ecclesiastical stained-glass from Munich serves as domestic-scaled decoration for the courtyard and playroom, dramatically bathing the house in colored light when offices in the old church are unpredictably used at night.” (Hampson. 52, 2007)

Stretto House - Steven Holl

Figure 2. http://www.stevenholl.com/project-detail.php?id=26&worldmap=true

When Steven Holl visited the site he had to work on, he found himself in a landscape characterised by a river that fed three ponds, each contained within small concrete walls over which water flowed, making a constant murmuring sound. Holl asked his students if they knew any musical compositions that were structured in parallel to the water that flowed on the site (Sanchez,. 2006). A student told him about the "Stretto" form where one musical phrase overlapped another and thus became the “Stretto House”.

This house is a great filet of the environment being that it was solely based on the surrounding environment. Holl was very cleaver in the way he represented the over flowing surrounding dams through the house’s roofing wall system.

As a container for human activities, this house is separated in such a way that it is devised into four distinct blocks. The had to be designed in a way that was felt open to display the clients art collection. It had different areas; public, private and work zones. Holl wrote that he wanted “to break [the house] down into pats that [could] be rendered in different materials.” Holl designed four bar-shaped blocks constructed of sharply detailed concrete, that represented the dams in the stream (Barna,. 1992).

This house is a delightful experience to anyone lucky enough to see it. Holl created a masterpiece that allowed everyone to realize how a house could represent the flow of music. Holl's inspiration was a score by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste." The result is a symphony of interconnected masonry and limestone pavilions whose arched roofs rise like musical crescendos, then dip with the undulating landscape'. (Iovine, 1994).

St Lucia House - Elizabeth Watson Brown Architects

Figure 3. http://crystalsdab310.blogspot.com/2010/03/part.html

Located on a site that originally was the backyard of an old house, the St Lucia House sits on a 400-square-metre site. There are three large trees, two mango s in the north and poinciana, that stand in line with one another. Elizabeth Watson Brown and Peter Skinner had to work around these imposing natural structures and have done so in an extrodinary way. The house has been constructed with a simple orthogonal plan and has used the environment which has a fantastic positive effect on the house.

As an environmental filter this house embrases the surrounding trees and is able to create a natural ventilation system. The spatial arrangement is also an exercise in passive climate control. Brown explains, “this is unlike the solid, air-conditioned constructions of neighbouring houses. Due to its open nature, the house offers a breezy passageway for natural ventilation to flow through the house.” (Jamil,. 2000).

Peter Skinner goes into depth about what effects the environment had on the design of the house, “-Orientation & Form: A very shallow height/depth/length ratio gives due north orientation to every major room, -Microclimate: Shade, transpiration and evaporation in the heavily treed northern court pre-cools summer breezes, -Ventilation: The tall, one-room deep house has a 50% openable north wall and high southern openings to maximize cross-ventilation, venturi and convection effects. Internal spaces are designed as openly as possible to maximise air movement, supplemented only by occasional bedroom fan use, -Solar Gain: The tall north window wall is fully shaded in summer and maximises winter sun penetration, -Thermal Zoning: Lightweight upper storeys vent and cool rapidly in summer evenings, while earth-coupled lower rooms provide ‘retreat’ spaces using thermal lag effects.” (Skinner, 2004).

The house is a perfect example of how houses are a container for human activities.The St Lucia House has been designed to meet the needs of the family of four, considering multi-generational living patterns (University of Queensland, 2006). It is separated into large public areas, private areas, working areas and outside public areas.

References

Barna, J. 1992. “Stretto House, Dallas / Steven Holl Architects”. Progressive Architecture, 73 (11), p. 54.

Hill, D. 2006. RAIA Residential Building Awards. Accessed on March 18, 2011. Available from: http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2006/10/raia_residentia.html

Hampson, A. 2007. “The Reformation”,. pg 50-54. Published Unknown. Accessed on March 18, 2011. PDF Available from: http://www.jamesrussellarchitect.com.au/reformation.pdf

Holl, S. 1992. Stretto House. Accessed on March 19, 2011. Available from:

http://www.stevenholl.com/project-detail.php?id=26&recentpress=57

Iovine, J. 1994. “New York Times Magazine April 10th 1994”. Issue: Unknown,. Vol: Unknown.

Jamil, R. 2000. “Split Interpretations”. Cubes, Issue Unknown, Vol. Unknown.

Russell, J. 2006. Brooke St House. Accessed on March 18, 2011. Available from:

http://www.jamesrussellarchitect.com.au/

Sanchez, J. 2006. The Stretto House In Dallas. Accessed on March 19, 2011. Available from: http://storiesofhouses.blogspot.com/2006/04/stretto-house-in-dallas-by-steven-holl.html

Skinner, P. 2004. Claims To The Significance Of The St. Lucia House. Accessed on March 18, 2011. Available from: http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/eserv/UQ:163464/ Claim_SLHouse.pdf

Unknown, 2006. Brisbane’s Architectural Brilliance. Accessed on March 18, 2011. Available from:

http://www.ourbrisbane.com/real-estate/brisbanes-architectural-brilliance

Watson Brown, E. St Lucia House. Accessed on March 18 2011. Available from:

http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:3544

PART B

Select Drawing Of Chosen Exemplar House

St Lucia House

DIAGRAMS

These diagrams analyse both the exemplar house and the site for the cabin.

They have been organised in categories; Delightful Experience, Container of

Human Activities, Environmental Filter and Cabin Design.

PART C

Cabin Design

This cabin takes influence from the St lucia house in all three categories. As an environmental filter I looked closely at how the architects used, to their advantage, the trees that were on their site. The main aspect of the trees that I took advantage of was how it could be used as a form of privacy. Having this many trees available helps block the public from viewing directly into the cabin. Also how the trees help the over all 'open' atmosphere of the cabin, allowing the client to peer through the trees and only see snippets of the surrounding world.

As a container of human activities I tried creating a similar spacial design by having a large public area placed in the centre of the cabin with private and working areas on the outside. I chose to place the office/study away from the bedroom to allow for the clients to feel somewhat separated from the sleeping area. Having public spaces on the deck, in front next to the pool and all through the living area, gives the clients a sense that the cabin is a lot larger than actually is.

The cabin, I feel, is a delightful experience due to the surrounding nature. The wind, sun and views are all taken advantage of through the design. The surrounding fence allows cool breeze to flow directly through the house. The orientation of the cabin allows it face in a northern direction, allowing for ultimate morning and afternoon sun protection. Having two stories to the cabin allows for the clients to vies the adjacent park or across the street to the golf course.

This cabin is an original idea that has had inspiration from the St. Lucia house and the clients will be pleasantly surprised at how a odd shaped site can be created into a weekend getaway house.