Construction has begun on the Red Bluff Residence.  Well, not exactly construction; before we can begin building the house we must remove the abandoned oil pipeline that runs through the middle of the site.  Over the past two days, construction crews have been mobilizing for this potentially toxic task, and today they’ve managed to pull the pipe out of the ground!

Workers in HAZMAT suits seal a portion of the pipeline

Soil samples being collected to for contamination testing.

Pipeline being moved for cutting into segments

Worker preparing to cut a section off the pipe for disposal.

Hopefully the contamination tests will come back negative…

Here’s an interesting first pass at a detail.

This is showing the condition on Red Bluff where the green roof detaches from the adjacent grade, and there’s a lot going on here.  We’re incorporating a drainage trench around the perimeter of the green roof which allows us to irrigate at the top of the slope and catch runoff at the bottom.  This allows us to both recirculate irrigation greywater and to collect any rainwater that falls on the roof and migrates down the slope.  There’s also a challenging transition from cantilevered steel structure to joists bearing on a structural retaining wall which requries both a transition between structural systems and a consistent retaining surface for the adjacent grade.  We’ll see what the engineers have to say…

This just turned up in a post about the gas crisis of ’73.  It’s described as “the outcome of the architect asking himself the question “How to make a house that resembles a park?”, and has an interesting resemblance to our approach to the Red Bluff residence.

I couldn’t find any good images of the interior, but the basic design seems interesting.  It’s a shame that integrated systems thinking seems to have died out in the 80′s after the energy crisis abated.

Red Bluff is an active project located in Austin, Texas near Town Lake.  The following post serves to highlight key moments throughout the design process of  this 1400 square foot residence.  Listed below are the initial design charrettes for Red Bluff which illustrate three very distinct conceptual approaches with various iterations therein:

1.  A compound scheme with a marked axis

2.  A hacienda/Roman villa iconographic scheme

3.  Architecture as land art/earth work

The charrette that was ultimately chosen for further development is the third.   As seen in the work of conceptual German artist, Wolfgang Laib,  Red Bluff  similarly touches on architecture as site specific installation art, but it mostly deals with architecture as an extension of the landscape.  As with many of our designs, influence is often drawn from vernacular precedents of various cultures.  Red Bluff’s relationship to the landscape, both in terms of approach as well as building performance, references the oldest housing typology in North America; the Pit House.

Examples of the Pit House