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Architects: Preston Scott Cohen
- Area: 418 m²
- Year: 2004
Text description provided by the architects. A transported, restored and re-erected Dutch barn frame is contained in this house like a guitar in its case. The gabled barn form appears to turn outside in due to a passageway traversing the entire width of the house.
The breezeway converts into a winter garden by means of slide up screen doors and roll down glass doors. Thermally transformable, the breezeway/winter garden saves energy costs while allowing visual access from the interior living space to the upper reaches of the unheated fifth bay of the barn structure.
The clients' affection for the antiquated timbers combined with their desire for an excessively lit and predominantly undivided interior did not allow for the reintroduction of the mezzanines and partitions that typically stabilize barn structures from within. Therefore, lateral structural stability has been reintroduced by a steel frame surrounding the barn.
The enclosure wall with windows wraps the peripheral steel frame. It is as if nostalgia caused the emergence of a Modernist paradigm of construction more fitting to a commercial building than to a house. The relationship between compartmental and open spaces, small and large windows, refined and rustic structural components creates a rich and variable environment for living, entertainment, artistic production and exhibition.
