AMOA ( Austin Museum of Art) recently hosted their Art Trek event at the Edward Durrell Stone house in Dallas. Built in the 50′s and lovingly restored to its full glory by our gracious host. This modernist residence was modeled after the US Embassy in Delhi, India.
As we mentioned in the previous post, Red Bluff borrows from the oldest housing typology in the Western Hemisphere, the Pit House. One of Red Bluff’s most dramatic architectural moves involves a 7 foot deep excavation which nestles the residence notably in the landscape, making it a modern version of this timeless dwelling. Like the Pit House, Red Bluff will benefit from using the earth’s mass to maintain thermal comfort throughout the year. The following sections illustrate the similarities between the Pit House and Red Bluff as they sit in the ground.
Pit House Section
Red Bluff Section
While the essence of Red Bluff is conversant with the Pit House, the process of refining the roof form has largely been influenced by a craft as time honored as this primitive dwelling; the art of origami. One of the foremost authorities on the practice and theory of origami is American Physicist, Dr.Robert J. Lang. According to him, “there’s a very simple problem that origami solves: whenever you have a big flat shape that has to get small.” From the early design sketches, you can see Red Bluff’s roof form develop from an elongated, flat, rectangular shape into a couple of triangles that fold up from the landscape with grounded edges which act as the “creases”.
Refined Roof Angles
With this subtle folding of the landscape, an idea that combines origami with earth work, the possibility of a roof garden is born. The following renderings show how the roof garden might look with various native flowers diagrammed by season.
