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Oblique view of northwest corner showing simultaneous read:surface/band/column
Northwest corner showing existing house in relation to new expansion
Driftwood Sands
East Quogue, New York 2020
Judith DiMaio, design partner for Bruce Nagel + Partners Architects
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Schematic sketch inspecting the evidence in axonometric projection
Client directive
“...transform the existing aesthetic and enlarge the residence”
Solution
First and foremost, her approach requires her to first inspect the evidence and consider the freedoms and limitations of the given criteria—in this case, do not demolish the existing residence.
Strategic thinking is ”knowing what to do when there is nothing to do,” suggesting, to devise a strategy that would:
1) mask the existing adhoc aesthetic, and 2) create a new framework to absorb the existing residence and unify it with the new construction.
The pre-existing 60s house, north elevation
As built north elevation: a unified residence where the old is embedded and absorbed into the whole
The Strategy and Outcome
Once the strategy was agreed upon and defined, we, along with our team, crafted, embedded and asorbed the existing house into a Modernist framework; a three-dimensional frieze or banding that transformed the given residence and merged it with the expansion.
The framework traces around the corners — north, east, south and west — after which the banding resurfaces and resumes its journey as the frieze, before it becomes, once again, flush with the volume of both the south and the beachfront elevations. In other words, the banding is much like a corset that contains and defines the volumetrics of the whole, implied or real.
Existing house
New expansion around existing house
Schematic sketch studying the armature norh elevation
Northeast corner showing simultaneous read:
double pier/band/surface
Oblique view of northeast corner showing simultaneous read: surface/band
Aerial photo of construction phase, looking south towards the Atlantic Ocean
Click sketch to see it full-size
Click sketch to see it full-size
Northwest corner showing band dovetailing
around corner as band
Site plan indicating locations of the banding variations around the house
Looking up at the northeast corner
Southeast corner showing simultaneous read: surface/window surround/band
© Conor Harrigan Photography: all photos unless indicated
Detail at southwest corner
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West elevation: stucco joints are struck on the diagonal as a counterpoint to the rigor of the orthogonal organization of the banding wrapping the residence
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The CONCEIT: tracing the banding around the house, traversing and transforming in meaning from band to surface to frieze, as it wraps the massing of the house—follow the banding counterclockwise from the northeast corner
Looking up at the north side
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East elevation: stucco joints are struck on the diagonal as a counterpoint to the rigor of the orthogonal organization of the banding wrapping the residence
