a retreat

RETREAT_02

This began as a small retreat house, in two halves connected by a central skylit entry, with full-height sliding doors on two sides and blank walls on the entry facades.  But, then I got to thinking, and decided to put it on stilts up in the air, like the fire lookout towers that dot the American West’s forests.  Obviously, this necessitates a staircase, which I suggest making a conical spiral.  To increase livable space in what would be an otherwise stuffy cabin, the entire steel structure has been wrapped to create an over-sized screened porch.  While I started with a butterfly roof and tried out a hip roof, I find the dichotomy of the butterfly against the spindly supports to be rather compelling.

RETREAT_01RETREAT_03RETREAT_04RETREAT_05RETREAT_06

a primitive hut

hut_01

Or not.  Maybe just a hut then.  A four-square hut.  With a porch on one side and a matching sleeping alcove on the other.  And a single wood stove.  A small kitchenette as well.  And plenty of bookshelves.  Or maybe a different roof altogether in place of the four gables?  An inverted butterfly perhaps?  I think so.  Much more interesting than the bucolic nonchalance of that first drawing.

 

hut_03

hut_02

butterfly roofs and stuff

VETERAN_01

This small project is a riff on a diagram I’ve been working on at work, but taken to a polemic state.  It’s a single volume, capped with an inverted gable ‘butterfly’ roof, clerestories all around, with a walled-in porch at the public entry and a covered patio at the rear.  The drawings below show what happens when this prototype engages with additional forms to make a more complete residence.

VETERAN_02

VETERAN_03