four-pitch-one-roof
A proposal for a house in Durham, North Carolina
Location: Durham, North Carolina
Date: 2020
Type: A CLT House in American South
4-Pitch 1-Roof merges the aesthetics of American South Vernacular, captured through the lens of contemporary artists William Christenberry and Beverly Buchanan with the Scandinavian Effect to reinterpret the meaning of constructing a home. While Christenberry captures the neglected houses on the side of the roads, Buchanan documents the aging structures of the slave sheds. The works reveal the complex nature of the banal and sheds light on the beauty of careless and naïve construction methods. Through the act of retracing, I attempt to reinterpret the artists’ works with the altitude of naivety using different mediums: ink and color pencils to explore a new way of perceiving the American South vernacular house typology.
The house utilizes the maximum built-able area of the site, synonymous to many large American mansions. It houses 10 people under 4 pitched roofs. While the house may be conceived as 4 individual houses from the exterior, the interior contradicts that perception. That dichotomy between exterior and interior is achieved by misaligning the interior walls from the self-standing exterior pitched roofs supported with diagrid structure. The structure pattern is routed into large sheets of CLT panels using the readily available CNC technology. The panels are then folded to self-stand, forming four repeating gable pitches. The exterior is cladded with tree logs that will otherwise be displaced due to the building placement. Window attachment pays homage to the beauty of banal tectonic employed in traditional American Southern homes.
Date: 2020
Type: A CLT House in American South
4-Pitch 1-Roof merges the aesthetics of American South Vernacular, captured through the lens of contemporary artists William Christenberry and Beverly Buchanan with the Scandinavian Effect to reinterpret the meaning of constructing a home. While Christenberry captures the neglected houses on the side of the roads, Buchanan documents the aging structures of the slave sheds. The works reveal the complex nature of the banal and sheds light on the beauty of careless and naïve construction methods. Through the act of retracing, I attempt to reinterpret the artists’ works with the altitude of naivety using different mediums: ink and color pencils to explore a new way of perceiving the American South vernacular house typology.
The house utilizes the maximum built-able area of the site, synonymous to many large American mansions. It houses 10 people under 4 pitched roofs. While the house may be conceived as 4 individual houses from the exterior, the interior contradicts that perception. That dichotomy between exterior and interior is achieved by misaligning the interior walls from the self-standing exterior pitched roofs supported with diagrid structure. The structure pattern is routed into large sheets of CLT panels using the readily available CNC technology. The panels are then folded to self-stand, forming four repeating gable pitches. The exterior is cladded with tree logs that will otherwise be displaced due to the building placement. Window attachment pays homage to the beauty of banal tectonic employed in traditional American Southern homes.
