Slowranch, Architect: KRDB (sold, built, occupied)
Traveling along a meandering driveway tucked away amongst the Pin Oaks, RH1 is approached from its more solid service wall. While the building is secluded amongst a dense stand of oaks at the edge of a large meadow, it is intimately connected to its landscape. The stack bond masonry wall on the ground floor firmly anchors the building to the site, while the metal clad tube rests gently atop steel columns, which are perpendicular to the solid plinth.

Upon entering a side door, the vista of the meadow immediately expands through a glass wall running the length of the public space. This space effectively doubles in size as it spills out onto a paved patio.

The apparently simple geometry of the stacked rectangles belies a complexity revealed in section. Like its horizontal expansion into the landscape, RH1 links the public and private through a double height space in the living room which is overlooked by a second floor sitting area. The public space is a large, open room capped by the kitchen at one end. The ceiling in the kitchen steps up, forming a light scoop through clerestory windows.

The services on the ground floor are contained within a core along the back wall, including the stair that rises up into the two-story space behind the hearth. The ground floor bedroom suite has a galley office/library and opens up to a side yard through sliding glass doors.

Upon ascending the stairs one enters a sitting room bookended by the two-story space and a large screened-in sleeping porch. The master suite, contained within the hovering metal-clad tube, feels like a tree house suspended in the oaks. A deck off the bedroom provides a perch. The master bath with walk-in shower also opens up onto the sleeping porch.

When was the last time you watched a shadow track the passing of an afternoon? This is a building that aspires to be generous yet intimate, abstract and tactile. A place to remember that life is not measured in share prices or acquisitions, but by the quality of moments.

Casa Luna, Architect: KRDB
Set aloft on the edge of a meadow RH2 opens its wings to a rolling East Texas vista. Approached through the trees, one comes upon the sinuous profile of the curved metal roof. A set of steps brings visitors up to the “joint” between the two wings.

This is a building that loves a good party (but it also likes to curl up with a book). Separation of public and private spaces result in two distinct volumes sited at a right angle to one another, joined by a common deck. The building orients to the meadow and a large, lone pine.

The public volume, or “ark,” is a single large space opening up to the deck. When the sliding glass doors pull back, inside and outside merge. A dining table can easily traverse the threshold; instant a la fresca. Railings and steps serve dual purposes as seating and gathering places, either on the deck or around the fire pit.

Sleeping quarters are accessed outside along the deck in the cedar-clad “dorm”. This volume has limited glazing and private balconies looking back into the trees. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a washer/dryer are contained in this unit. The large master bedroom on the end affords maximum privacy.

Dragonfly, Architect: Marion Blackwell
Housing Prototypes for the New American Landscape

Since 1992 I have engaged in on-going research concerned with reading and interpreting the American landscape. I have developed design prototypes that refer to the rich found reality of this terrain, as opposed to idealized, nostalgic images of what might constitute a cultural landscape. The convergence of urban, suburban, and agricultural patterns, and the resulting typological and semiological ambiguities, provide the sources from which I extract models for typological transformations and interventions. The combination of selected characteristics of things made and things born—from the mobile home to nature—allows for a kind of architectural husbandry, a wrinkled emergence of strangely familiar forms. Over the last ten years these prototypes have provided a “bucket of ideas” from which we have drawn for use in the conceptual and formal development of subsequent commissions. Most of our built projects to date are descendants of these early investigations.

DragonFly House (1994)
What do you get when you cross a dragonfly with a camper? The DragonFly House, of course. A (re)vision of the American cabin or camp house, this prototype is suited for a variety of sites—in flood plains, on lakes, atop mountains or buttes, with dense foliage or in the open desert—and provides open views. To minimize its impact on the earth, the tiered body of the building is elevated between five and eleven feet, on eight inclined steel piers imbedded in concrete. The space beneath service multiple functions—as a shaded parking area, a terrace, and an entryway from the underbelly of the structure. The structure touches the earth lightly and strikes an unexpected pose upon the land.

L.O.F.F.S, Architect: Miro-Rivera
A Light, Open, Flexible, Sustainable Structure for rural settings

Lightness. A beautiful natural setting requires a structure that is light and non-disruptive, that touches the ground lightly.
Openness. For a connection with the outside the structure must be open, walls must dissolve into the landscape.
Flexibility. In response to varying programs, changing needs, the structure must offer total flexibility and adaptability.
Sustainability. Because we believe is our duty to protect the environment,the structure must incorporate basic, common sense, sustainable principles.

We have designed the L.O.F.S.S with all the above in mind.

The L.O.F.S.S is built from modular prefabricated steel structure sections assembled on site. Roof and floor decks are built with prefabricated insulated panels. The simple section, resembling the wings of a bird about to take off, enables an easy harvesting of the rain water. Glazed walls are protected with deep overhangs allowing plenty of natural light but no direct sun. The structure can be easily cross ventilated and hot air is exhausted through the high clerestory.

L.O.F.S.S can be configured as linear bars, with breezeways, around a courtyard,in separate pavilions, etc. Once the steel skeleton is in place, a L.O.F.S.S can remain open as a shade structure, be screened, or glazed to create a dwelling a shop, or a studio. This flexibility affords easy growth and transformation over time.

Red House, Architect: Shipley Architects

The Red House is a 1,400 square foot weekend house for a family of four on forty acres of rocky land two hours south of Dallas.

The client asked that the design be practical, worthy of the landscape and climate, inexpensive, and simple not only in form but in ease of construction.

The house is placed at the base of a steep hill to capture views and breeze. The narrow 16’ x 70’ plan is set parallel to the slope to reduce the extent of cut and fill. A 16’ x 16’ screened porch juts out on the downhill, east exposure. Terraces of wood and stone step down to connect the house with the natural grade. A wide overhang protects the exterior walls.

Primary materials include: hardboard siding with nail-on metal corners, corrugated galvanized sheet metal, fir plywood walls and ceilings, and sealed concrete floors.
 
Shipley Architects views every project as an opportunity to make a special place that takes full advantage of the unique opportunities offered by the site and budget.