Entry Title: "Kelly Residence"
Designer(s): Trevor Abramson and Douglas Teiger, United States
Category: Architecture Categories, Professional
About the Artist

Entry Description: Kelly Residence is an exploration of balance: between solid vs. void, formal order vs. intimate grace, private vs. public, and stoic vs. playful, all relative to achieving a higher sense of spatial freedom within an architectural home. Abramson Teiger Architects (ATA) divided the use of the spaces into public below and private above on the second floor. The house has a parent’s side and a children’s side, allowing each user their privacy and sound control, with an umbilical cord, given architectural form as a bridging element joining the two parts. The house is divided into four boxes. Each box is individually articulated and expressed by the use of different exterior surface treatment. Each box, finished in white plaster, floats on white pilotis. Each box has a single wall extending its full length to the ground. The reddish-brown panels, acting as an organizational element for the first floor spaces, are manufactured by Trespa from sustainable products. The spaces were oriented to maximize the views from the house, as well as to allow the house’s inhabitants to derive maximum benefit from natural light through carefully positioned openings and skylights. Le Corbusier’s five points of new architecture developed in 1927 are the influence for this project. They are examined and reinterpreted: The pilotis: The private and more secluded bedrooms are up in the air far from the ground. The rooms on the ground floor all have large expansive openings allowing the garden to run under the house. The roof garden: Southern California climate and expansive site negated the need for a roof garden. View to the garden from all rooms is paramount. Free plan: The layout is not a slave to the supporting walls. Structural steel provides a free plan. The floors are no longer superimposed by partition walls. They are free. On the ground floor walls weave in and out of the pilotis. The horizontal window: The horizontal window is one of the essential features of the house. Progress since Le Corbusier brings further liberation, and the corners are eroded completely. The free façade: The columns on the ground floor allow the façade to be free of the structure. On the second floor, structural advancement allows the “Corbusier Box” as seen in Villa Savoye to be less rigid. Here the “box” is broken further and instead of being a complete four sided object it has a missing side which is replaced by the free façade of the first floor that is extruded upward. The “box” has now become free façade. The notion of free facade is explored further with the nature of its materiality. Wood paneling is used to express the idea that the walls that it covers are not load bearing. To articulate this idea further, cut outs are sprinkled throughout the panels, many at the edges. High-gloss painted metal panels are recessed into the wood, puncturing the solidity of the wood. SUSTAINABILITY ASPECTS TO THE HOUSE o Solar Voltaic on the roof o Artificial lawn in the front o Grey water reclamation drip irrigation system o Reflecting pond at the face of the glass wall to allow cool air circulation o Trespa wood panels offsetting the front wall with an air barrier to provide additional circulation o All energy-star rated appliances o Coating on the skylights to cut down on heat/cooling loss (similar to window tinting on cars) o Tankless water heaters o Zoned heating and air conditioning system, including a high efficiency unit in the master bedroom zone