House for an Artist

One of a pair of conjoined houses designed for artist clients with a shared studio space between them. Material expression articulates the threshold between public and private spaces; the first floor is built up with stereotomic concrete block, while the upper floor is conceptualized as a lightweight vessel framed in wood, independent of the ground. Two additional moves further enforce this dichotomy: pushing back the first floor to create a cantilever and wrapping the upper floor in a translucent polycarbonate rainscreen, creating a layered facade with depth.

The house is attached to its partner through the studio space shared between them. With an understanding of the roof as the “fifth facade”, this unified complex is defined by a series of openings from above which bring light into living spaces and key sequential moments. This strategy creates an architectural language of mass punctured by vertical spatial cores around which residents circulate and structure their lives. The central studio naturally serves as the most hierarchically important of these cores.

The combined project is in turn part of a master plan for a housing co-op collaboratively developed by the studio for a large site in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood. This series of houses clusters around a shared garden and creates an “outdoor room” within the urban fabric accessed via a gap in the massing on Penn Avenue.

As one of the houses directly adjacent to this entrance, this project has the unique responsibility of bridging the public streetscape and the privacy of the inner room. The entrance acknowledges an urban landmark by angling towards the St. Augustine church to the north, a decision which resulted in the canted wall of the long facade.

Partner project with Franklin Zhu: frankliz@andrew.cmu.edu

Site model photos by Angela Castellano: aycastel@andrew.cmu.edu