Flying Geese Lot Size
2016 AIA Honor Awards Project Submission Project Name: Flying Geese Lot Size: 19,152 sq. ft. Building size: 4,584 sq. ft. Location: Mercer Island, Washington Primary Project type: Residential, Single Family
Flying Geese: Project Narrative Site Considerations This narrow site is located on the east side of Mercer Island along a slanting shoreline. The site has a moderate slope with views out to Mt. Rainier at a 45 degree angle to the property lines. Our response is a stepped structure that follows the shoreline while opening up the home to the lake. A stepped terrace heals the 8 foot grade difference between the main floor and the natural grade at the shore. The terrace steps create an opportunity for a sculptural series of board-form concrete planters and water feature. The water feature source is at the entry and wells up from a custom designed black basalt fountain, flowing towards the lake before cascading down several steps, creating water sound to block the traffic noise from the distant freeway.
Our Approach We practice architecture in order to evoke pleasure and emotion through the utility and ritual of daily life. Our design is about the lives of particular people as expressed in a specific place: in that way the work is authentically human-centered. That is the fulcrum around which each residential design develops, aiming to create a continually rediscovered delight in the home. The pleasure and emotion experienced by a client is not bounded strictly by walls; it extends throughout every detail inside the home and beyond the property line to encompass scene and season. For that reason ours is an integrated practice comprising Architecture, Landscape and Interiors; only by directing all of these elements can we derive the best expression of a life on the site. Once the site is selected the point or moment is found that evokes the strongest emotional experience. Using the overlay of a client’s daily rituals we identify several moments and extend them dynamically throughout the plan - an infinite sequence of moments. The analysis of these ‘stochastic’ patterns yields a rationale for massing functional areas of the structure, well integrated with the particulars of the site considering light, views, and climate. The structure should have a natural and inevitable quality, a diachronic character that is an extension of human settlements and vernacular building forms. We avoid overt symmetry or rigorous pattern. Shifted massing, horizontally offset planes, and staggered spatial shoulders encourage easy movement and an itinerant gaze which is an emphatically non-reductionist approach to the lived experience of the home.
Flying Geese: Project Narrative Site Considerations This narrow site is located on the east side of Mercer Island along a slanting shoreline. The site has a moderate slope with views out to Mt. Rainier at a 45 degree angle to the property lines. Our response is a stepped structure that follows the shoreline while opening up the home to the lake. A stepped terrace heals the 8 foot grade difference between the main floor and the natural grade at the shore. The terrace steps create an opportunity for a sculptural series of board-form concrete planters and water feature. The water feature source is at the entry and wells up from a custom designed black basalt fountain, flowing towards the lake before cascading down several steps, creating water sound to block the traffic noise from the distant freeway.
Our Approach We practice architecture in order to evoke pleasure and emotion through the utility and ritual of daily life. Our design is about the lives of particular people as expressed in a specific place: in that way the work is authentically human-centered. That is the fulcrum around which each residential design develops, aiming to create a continually rediscovered delight in the home. The pleasure and emotion experienced by a client is not bounded strictly by walls; it extends throughout every detail inside the home and beyond the property line to encompass scene and season. For that reason ours is an integrated practice comprising Architecture, Landscape and Interiors; only by directing all of these elements can we derive the best expression of a life on the site. Once the site is selected the point or moment is found that evokes the strongest emotional experience. Using the overlay of a client’s daily rituals we identify several moments and extend them dynamically throughout the plan - an infinite sequence of moments. The analysis of these ‘stochastic’ patterns yields a rationale for massing functional areas of the structure, well integrated with the particulars of the site considering light, views, and climate. The structure should have a natural and inevitable quality, a diachronic character that is an extension of human settlements and vernacular building forms. We avoid overt symmetry or rigorous pattern. Shifted massing, horizontally offset planes, and staggered spatial shoulders encourage easy movement and an itinerant gaze which is an emphatically non-reductionist approach to the lived experience of the home.
