Garage Addition

 

As in the Aulastrum skeleton seen in the illustration to the left, nature creates complexity and dynamic organic beauty with building blocks of exquisite simplicity. It is wonderous and fundamental for order and natural law to represent themselves as though existing to satisfy some thoughtful system of organization.

The project is a three dimensional experiment in the release of typical systems architects use to create order and proportion and the adoption of a geometrical thesis as the genesis of an organic form and structure. The owners desired to improve, at minimal expense, the front of the house with an inviting entrance and addition of a two-car garage and a small woodworking and pottery studio. The challenge was to balance the unusual original house design---strongly articulated with multiple roof planes and large areas of glass---with a design that would satisfy the owners desires and complement the house. This was achieved with an intellectual construct---the formal complexity of a pinwheeling set of concrete steps and an opposed pinwheel of gossamer roof planes---using ordinary, everyday materials. The results are a light-hearted and playful garage structure and welcoming new entrance.