brick – Page 3

a pantheon, of sorts

2016⋅11⋅282016⋅11⋅28 NS ColemanLeave a comment

This project started as a half-cube, which then got its corners chamfered off to become an octagon. It then had a large spherical central space carved out of its inside, in grand imitation of the archetypal Pantheon in Rome, but here rendered in simple brick, without the fuss of the Orders or coffers. Typically, the entrance to a central sancto sanctorum like this is given directly from the outside, but this project forces one to ambulate first through smaller domes at the corners before entering the central space, which is shown in the diagonal section below.

two halves and a courtyard

2016⋅11⋅18 NS ColemanLeave a comment

This small house is defined by the square courtyard at its center, which is filled with trees and a reflecting pool. The form that wraps it is bisected by alleys, forcing one to ambulate through the courtyard to move between the halves. Further, no access is granted directly from the house to the surrounding landscape, making the courtyard the public entry as well. Studies below explore rendering two of the courtyard faces in Doric form, opposed to the simple brick envelope at the exterior.

a richardsonian cabin

2016⋅11⋅012016⋅11⋅01 NS ColemanLeave a comment

Continuing last week‘s Californian agricultural experiments, this small structure (which I’m titling a ‘cabin’, but really is a programless form) is square in plan with a pitched roof running in one direction, terminating in a dutch gable at the far end over a colonnaded porch and a large circular window in the gable face, and cantilevering over the entry portico, where two identical doors reference the four-square floor plan. The language owes much to Richardson, filtered through the vernacular, with a shingle roof, clapboard walls, and a flemish bond brick base.

half house

2016⋅09⋅282016⋅09⋅28 NS Coleman1 Comment

While taking its name from one of John Hejduk’s many unbuilt projects, the One-Half House, this project offers a different interpretation of an architecture of halves. One half-plan of Richardson meets one half-plan of Neutra. The entry portico is recessed into the building line, and takes cues from some vernacular Angeleno tract homes from the 1930’s (concurrent with Neutra’s earlier formal explorations). I do think that the stucco variation at the bottom is much more convincing than the overtly Richardsonian brick variant – but maybe it needs to be weaned of a little too much Krier (Miami, or Windsor).

taking a spin with ellwood

2016⋅09⋅19 NS ColemanLeave a comment

From last Friday’s foray into Craig Ellwood’s Scientific Data Systems building, I offer a revised take, with a large standing seam copper hip roof, and a skylit rotunda in place of the cubic atrium, and rounded out the panelled masonry walls along the east and west axes. Placing a large hip roof on a square form may be a subtle nod to Thomas Beeby’s Baker Institute at Rice University. The detail at right shows a new cornice with dentils and beads rendered in brick. Maybe something fun could be done with those columns. . .

a garden gate

2016⋅09⋅142016⋅09⋅14 NS ColemanLeave a comment

Because even the most mundane of elements deserve to be thoughtfully and appropriately considered, I’m featuring a series of details and design considerations for a gate at my house, fronting a small garden courtyard. Typical wood rails span brick piers, with a weighted chain closer to keep things tidy.

a pool house

2016⋅08⋅192016⋅08⋅19 NS ColemanLeave a comment

A square with brick exterior walls, with a square pool in the center. One half of the enclosure is fleshed out on the interior with modern details, while the other has a classical impluvium roof, but with the same sliding glass doors as the modern half. An unfolded wormseye (upview) axonometric is below.

a library

2016⋅08⋅05 NS ColemanLeave a comment

In another rift on Bruce Price’s library at Tuxedo Park, this project takes one long gabled volume, with trabeated Doric aedicules on either end, and meets it with a second gable on the short axis. These two volumes don’t meet with a 90° corner, but are filleted with a quarter-round, in a nod to Stanley Tigerman’s Daisy House (among others). The variations below ditch the primary gable for a low one running in the opposite direction, and the aedicules take up the difference in geometry.

a cottage villa

2016⋅07⋅15 NS ColemanLeave a comment

A square with Richardsonian towers on the corners, flat masonry facades in the main axis, with full-height shingle roofs over porches in the other. A skylit circular stair in a square hall in the center with octagonal-ish foyers on either end with half-round aedicules for entry porches.

basilican explorations

2016⋅07⋅08 NS ColemanLeave a comment

As I was writing this post a few weeks ago, I found the plan to be once again worthy of some further reflection and thought – precisely the nine-square plan, with a hybrid basilica and greek cross interior volume, the four empty corners filled with circular forms (bathrooms and stairs) encased in heavy poche, and all of it wrapped in a brick Richardsonian wrapper under a singularly simple red tile hip roof. The bottom iteration was the first, while I was still wrangling the plan into a perfect nine-square.