The type Variant house

This VJAA building (1996), is designed to a family house, with the possibility to provide habitations for the married sons (five families), and two families of guests. The house is designed as a collection of wood-framed, copper-clad boxes, in the middle of a green area in northern Wisconsin.
Each person gets his own private space, and the living areas are common. Living room and a number of terraces connect the various parts of the building.

1. Body

Each inhabitant has his own space, which is a bedroom and a bathroom. All the intimate spaces are therefore private. On the opposite, the living spaces are collective.

2. Building

The house, inspired by industrial structures of the Midwest, is a collection of repeated boxes. The buildings are connected by the main living area, and by a network of terraces. The guestrooms are located outside of the main structure (close to its edges) and consist of two towers.

3. City

This project is located in a vast fores and close to a big lake. It tries to be in harmony with its environment.

4. Environment

The house is designed like a garden, to change over the years. The materials that are used dialog with the surroundings: The wood structure in the inside reminds the site, and the copper cladding on the outside is a metaphora of nature, which changes with the time and eventually suffer degradations.

5. Technology

The house is composed of three principal materials and construction methods: the volume of the stone ground and fireplace, the wooden structure, and the copper cladding.

6. Implementation

The owners interest in serial collecting led to the choice of shaping the modulated structures that compose the house. The clients are a wealthy familly from New York, with five grown up kids (who have their own families). The families use this building as a vacation estate.

Neighbors

The owners use this house as a vacation estate. The parents' suite is in the first floor, the children stay in the second floof, and the guests live in the external towers.

Neighborhing

Each of the private spaces is slightly different in shape, orientation, and light, in order to strenghten the individuality, but comprise the same functions, which are not enough to live. All the living spaces are common and give a strong sense of community.

Neighborhood

The Estate is located in the middle of a very vast area of vegetation. It gives its inhabitants the feeling to be in their own planet, far from the chaos on NYC.