- Area: 10000 ft²
- Year: 2006
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Photographs:Timothy Hursley
Text description provided by the architects. The L-Stack House responds to a site anomaly set within a dense inner-city neighborhood near a city park. The 10,000 sqf trapezoid-shaped lot is traversed diagonally by a dry-bed creek. The urban grid and the modest scale of existing houses in the neighborhood is enhanced through a strategy of bridging and stacking of forms.
In effect a new order is superimposed upon a in-fill tract of land that has been undeveloped since the 19th century origins of the city of Fayetteville. The resulting scheme is an ‘L’ configuration that subdivides the interior program and the site into private and public entities. A carefully positioned glass-enclosed stairway hinges together the two 18 -foot wide boxes that form the house structure.
At the interior, the ground floor is organized as a linear open plan with connecting terraces along and adjacent to the creek. Throughout the house, windows and skylights are arranged to provide controlled views, illumination, a sense of privacy, and opportunities to observe the dynamic nature of the creek. The stairway penetrates the underbelly of the second floor. Here private spaces are more discreet and cellular, however, all spaces open onto a hall that serves as a common family space for reading, office work, or watching television. Primary materials at the interior include teak floors, wenge, walnut, and white oak millwork, and painted wood plank accent walls. Large steel box windows provide spaces for sitting or sleeping.
The exterior cladding is a unique rain screen system articulated with rot resistant Brazilian redwood. The wood screen is disengaged from a rubber-clad substrate and is stacked and screwed on the flat creating a horizontal louvered effect at the long walls. The cladding system provides for 50% transparency and perceptually provides the walls with a phenomenal translucency. End walls are either black metal clad or glass storefronts.
