Bored!

Ok I can tell everyone's getting bored of precedents, I know I am, but I've got a scheme cooking at the moment, which I'm not yet ready to go public with. I've got to get it out soon though, as the ideas have woken me up at 3am the last 3 nights and won't let me sleep until I've drawn them up.

But on the other hand, maybe I shouldn't do anything until I've been to the site?

Materiality: Salk Institute, Louis Kahn

I love this combination of timber and concrete. Of course this is in-situ ashen concrete and probably maple wood, you could probably fake it with ply and cement bricks to get that beautiful combination of colour and textures.

Images: Louis Kahn, Salk Institute, La Jolla California, 1969-74

Precedent: Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Frederick Romberg

This is the perfect example of all architecture needs to be. Square plan, elegantly squat roof and spire, basic but good quality materials, beautifully simple detailing (notice how the roof is held up by fine steel columns which are pulled off the corners to let the domestic timber window frames run past), a wonderful setting, and a warm soft light in the interiors.

Images: Frederick Romberg, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Canberra, 1961-63

Precedent: House at Lake Connewarre, Kerstin Thompson

When I first saw this house published I didn't really get it, there didn't seem to be enough, I was bored by it. But now I realise thats what's good about it, it's really un-pretentious, almost un-authored. It uses almost banal standard construction and materials and is draped over the site without any resistance or big gestures. But the plan and its subtle clever cranks makes it seem so liveable.

I also heard it was pretty cheap for the winner of the best residence in the national awards.

Images: Kerstin Thompson Architects, House at Lake Connewarre, 2004

Courtyard House 3: Court-house with Gararge, Mies van Der Rohe

The ultimate unbuilt courtyard house to complete the trilogy. A rare occasion when Mies went 'off grid'.

Image: Mies van Der Rohe, Court-house with Garage, 1934

Courtyard Houses 2: Baker House by Robin Boyd

Although there's a few things I'm not into about this house - mainly the 'country' overtones of Boyd's interest in the 'Aussie homestead' as a type - I really like the plan as it seems to both engage with the landscape beyond, while also defend against it.

The outer walls are very much of the landscape - quarried out of local slate - while the interior outer wall is set well back creating this great blurred threshold under the huge roof.

The other cool thing about this house is the interior courtyard covered with flyscreen - a bug-free outdoor room.

Images: Robin Boyd, Baker House, Bacchus Marsh, 1968 - Sorry they're a bit crap.

Courtyard Houses 1: Hill St House by Roy Grounds

The first in a series of many precedent posts. I've been interested in the courtyard house as a way of engaging with the idea of the house as a 'sancturary'. Maybe I'm taking the word to mean 'citadel', but I think there's something appropriate about having a well defined envelope that more intimate spaces are then carved out of, perhaps as a strategy for resisting the harsh environment beyond.

I've also been thinking a lot about Lily's art, particularly the frequent use of primitive geometries like circles and cubes. Grounds combines both these ideas, the citadel and primitive geometries, but with a delicate, almost Japanese quality of space.

Images: Roy Grounds, Hill St House, South Yarra, 1954