Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Tiny Architecture

As will become apparent, I'm a sucker for small, nicely detailed sheds & such. There's something about taking a small, small project and figuring out every bit of its construction. This project:




isn't perfect - it seems to have too much glass, the windows are too close to the edges of the wall, the dormer isn't a strong enough element (I keep thinking of what Venturi would do with it), and the siting is...well, let's just be charitable and call it problematic. But something about it seems to represent an iconic idea of an urban house.

Further digging makes this analysis somewhat moot - the name of the project is "Roundabout House," and it's the creation of artist / architect John Kormeling. It travels, once around a Dutch roundabout, one rotation every 20 hours...which makes the siting a non-issue. I still have some misgivings about the proportions of the front facade, misgivings that amplify when I realize that this isn't an actual house but an object to be experienced in the landscape. One would think that the notion of a house moving through the landscape is key to the artist's vision, and that idiosyncratic design choices (of which there are several, certainly) might detract from that experience. I'd like to know more about the artist's idea.
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