Project 3 - Terrace House
Scenario
Beckett’s Park campus is undergoing expansive building works funded by fifteen wealthy benefactors. In order to maintain their links with the University each benefactor has requested a new dwelling on the south side of The Acre.
The University’s Estates Department understand that trees will have to be repositioned as part of these works and have arranged an intensive replanting scheme (the locations of which fall outside the remit of your design proposals).
Site
Whichever way you look at it, the house was a central preoccupation for Le Corbusier…Into this work Le Corbusier poured all the fanatical attention to detail, the grandiose sweep of ideas, the restless experimentation and the passionate commitment of which he was capable… the house also occupied a central place in Le Corbusier’s theoretical scenario and cannot be understood outside it. The dwelling…is the primary interface between the individual and the outside world.-Tim Benton, ‘Six Houses’ in Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century, Arts Council of Great Britain
Brief
You are to design a terraced dwelling for one of the following benefactors. Your client (will be selected at random and) will have one of the following occupations:
Surgeon
Astronaut
Magician
Carpenter
Politician
Explorer
Baker
Musician
Painter
Botanist
Lifeguard
Tailor
Writer
Optometrist
Puzzle Maker
My Client picked at random was - a writer. I have chosen to depict my client as a Haynes Manual author. Haynes Manuals are well-known for having step-by-step instructions written from hands on experience, based on the strip down and rebuild of vehicles using commonly-available tools.
In the same way the Haynes manual present their illustrations – the images are drawn in an explosive-like state in which the parts of the car are visible in sections – I wanted my house to tell the story of how it was built and how its frame was assembled. The anatomy of the house is exposed so each part of its skeletal frame can be identified and you can easily determine how it all pieces together.
My model in progress
The Haynes House
The building itself acts as a manual detailing how the building is put together and works with the structure being on display through out the interior of the building doorways providing an opportunity to show internal wall construction in section.
The floor to the guest suite is constructed of toughend glass showing the piled foundations all services will be on show instead of hidden away in walls or ducts throughout the entire building the inner workings that we all take for granted working away behind the scenes to make our modern homes comfortable for us to live in are actively put on show and celebrated.
The story of the building is also told to the external passerby with the floor plans for the ground and top floor cover the front and rear facades respectively.
Environmental issues are also a theme of this building with the front facade being covered with salvaged metals and wherever possible the structure of the building will also be constructed with salvaged materials.
Natural light is used to save on artificial light usage. This is achieved by a louvered section to the front facade proving the kitchen and work spaces with privacy and natural light. The entire rear facade of the building is glazed with privacy achieved via internal blinds when required.
Due to the long narrow plot one of the biggest problems to solve was to get light to penetrate to the centre section of the building. This was overcome by providing the open top glass prism which penetrates directly through the centre of the house.
The uses of this prism are twofold firstly it allows light to penetrate throughout the building and as a water harvester. The prism is open topped and all of the surrounding roof area is set to fall toward the central prism meaning that when it rains the centre of the house is brought to life as waterfall transporting rainwater down through the house to a water storage tank below the ground floor ready for re-use around the building.
I thought a quirky way to present my client profile would be to do a mock up of the front cover of my clients very own Haynes Manual.
