CONTEXT AND BUILDING II
What do you think about "context" in architecture? For me, context is one of the tools that what we really need in designing. There is a lot of different understandings about context and all of them will finally apply in any design. So, do you think context is important in architecture today and past 100 years ago? I would say it is same important for both of the centuries.
The three articles that we read is discussing the meaning and opinion of "context", in the Adrian Forty's article, it mentioned "the task of the architectural project is to reveal, through the transformation of form,the essence of the surrounding context", I'm pretty agreed with this concept about the context. Through this idea of context, I realised that the architecture today and the past 100 years is exactly same important supported by some of the examples.
Lets get into the building that roughly completed in a century ago and the contemporary building to know how important of context and what is the community between the two building. I'm going to show the same type of building which is housing in the different century.
Old building
This is Eames House which is completed in 1949, about 68 years ago in America. It was a landmark for mordern architecture in America and proved that modern architecture could create "homey" houses with minimalist structure.
The initial design considerations were guided by the materials, locations, and need for privacy between the two houses. The placement of Easmes house on the three acre lot is determined by privacy between Entenza House and surrounding context.
The first plan of the Easmes House known as the Bridge House was designed 1945. The Eames house was originally placed perpendicular to the hill on the west, jutting out onto the meadow, with a large view of the ocean.
By then, according to Ray, she and Charles, the owner and also the architect had “fallen in love with the meadow,” and the eucalyptus trees. They felt that the Bridge House design did not complement the site, rather imposed upon it, and would have required the Eameses to remove many existing eucalyptus trees and felt that the site required a different solution.
They are thinking how to build a house that would not destroy the meadow and finally they integrated the new design into the landscape. This initial design was rotated 90° for the final design, with the front of the house facing the meadow, . The 90° rotation kept the meadow intact and provided the Eames with a large view of the meadow and a diagonal view of the ocean.
This new configuration gave the Entenza house a clear view of the ocean and the Eames house gained a large view of their beloved meadow. The rotation also created a natural screen of privacy, as the Eames House was finally situated directly behind a row of ten existing eucalyptus trees by working with the surrounding context.
Contemporary building
This is Harold Street Residence which is located at Australia, completed in 2011 by Jackson Clements Burrows Architects. The Harold Street Residence is a new two storey dwelling located in a heritage overlay area of Middle Park. The brief called for a new residence for a couple with university age children that would accommodate their evolving family needs. A corner site is an important one in any neighbourhood, as the building must respond to the surrounding context on two sides.
The new residence takes cues from its surrounding context, primarily seen in the sloping roof, red brick facade and building scale. The brickwork along Neville Street provides a robust public edge to the house. Articulation is added to the surface through ‘hit and miss’ brick detailing and Webforge screening. These gestures are complimentary to the Victorian fretwork and decorative detailing that defines the ambience of the site location.
The twisting form of the zinc clad roof was chosen to reconcile the building with its single storey surrounding context and the requirements of the clients brief. To the Harold Street frontage, this form can be viewed as an abstracted version of the pediments and gables of surrounding roofscapes, and allows the house to be perceived as single storey at the corner entry.
However, slight liberties are taken with these design cues, as the sloping roof only slopes on one side, the red brick facade has an offset pattern at either end to facilitate the sharing of light, while the building mass is distributed over two floors rather than a single one.
At night this condition reverses and the building glows invitingly to the street. In summary, the building is a sculpturally engaging family home that acknowledges its heritage context in a positive way.
