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PGB Press Featured Projects |
ARCHITECTURE
OF THE SPIRIT
The passion for process arose from the fact that all the participants in the project are professional shapers of space. The client was Tony Shankle, The president of Principle Building Group (formerly Scene Three), whose company served as contractor. The designers were Patrick Avice du Buisson and David Michael Powell, both former cohorts of Manual Zeitlin and currently the pair the constitute the firm of Polifilo. Shankle commissioned Polifilo to combine office and residential functions in a structure that would rest easily on 110 ancestral acres in Chapel Hill, Tenn. Shankle had lived in Nashville for 10 years, in large house on Whitland Avenue and in Green Hills, Belle Meade and Bellevue. “ I never felt comfortable” he says. “Something in me wanted to look at trees, and not see a house behind the trees, So my father sold me part of his farm. This is my homeplace; it’s where I grew up.” Shankle was able to take his business to the country as well because few clients come to his office. “ We usually meet in the architect’s office, or on the job site. I called some clients and asked then how they’d feel about us being 45 minutes away. One said, “ Where the hell are you now?” Shankle has strong professional relationships with many architects. He says he chose Polifilo in part “ because my personal taste-neo-contemporary-coincides with theirs. But I also selected them because I know from previous work with Patrick and Dave that they will spend more time, put more heart into a project. At some level business and architecture collide. I’ve seen some architects get beaten down by the bottom line, and some who develop large firms and take on the values of business. Either way, they lose a little of their spirit. Patrick and Dave still see architecture as a spiritual thing.” Shankle and Powell selected the exact location for the house “during a snow storm.” As Shankle explains, “We got to a spot-on a bluff over the Duck River, with views of the woods and fields as well-where you could hear the snow falling, and nothing else. Here I could have everything I want.”
The design and building process was dictated by the many discussions Shankle says he’s had with the Polifilo duo about the “master builder of 50 to 100 years ago, the guy who served as architect and contractor in one and lived on the site. We decided to try and enact that concept with my house.” “Because everything is exposed-the idea was to reveal the structure whenever possible-all the screws and nails had to be precisely lined uo, and the plywood was installed to reveal the edge, so you could see all the plys,” adds Avice du Buisson. “The craft of construction is pretty much a lost art.” The team recaptured it here. Special consideration was given to minimizing the impact on the land. The structure was therefore set on stilts, to eliminate the need for grading and leveling. The road was woven around the largest trees. “Then we cleared the site and left trees around the edge as a border,” Shankle says. “Patrick and Dave literally designed the building to fit within the trees.” What Polifilo designed first was a well house in the silo shape, and then a warehouse. Finally they were ready to take on the home/office. Avice du Buisson came up with the concept of separating public and private functions into two pods, linked in a setback alignment. The pod with wood siding and metal details-a coarser exterior texture-contains office, living, dining and kitchen areas. The private pod-clad in the finer grain of corrugated metal-housed bedroom, closets and bath. The ceiling for the public pod is higher, the rood pitch less steep. The lower ceiling of the private pod creates a cozier feel. Floors are plywood, covered with a rubber paint. Ceilings and roods are corrugated metal separated by a layer of insulation. The barn trusses are painted bright blue. Shankle also credits Avice du Buisson with “the almost surgical placement of the windows. Patrick studied the site and then placed squares of glass-at seating level-to reveal specific sightlines. Clerestory panes reveal larger conditions. I can sit at my desk and look at a favorite tree, of I can lie in bed and watch a thunderstorm approaching, of the moon come out,” Shankle says “There’s so much interaction with nature it feels like camping.” Strong sightlines through the house-from the pod to pod, from bedroom to bath-establish an interior transparency. At 1,900 square feet, “this house feels larger that the 4,200 square feet I’d lived in,” Shankle says But it was the method, as much as the result, that Shankle appreciates. “All of us got so deeply involved. The process was a pleasure, and I Get to keep it, too.” |
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The
house has simple, uncluttered lines and a relaxed, open feel. At
first glance, there’s little to indicate that the structure
embodies an obsession with architecture as process as well as product.
The
next step was to drive around the country exploring the language
of the traditional architecture of Chapel Hill, a language of barns
and silos, of rough wood and raw metal. “ The materials of
Tony’s house-birch plywood, flat and corrugated metal, western
cedar trim, stone for the fireplace, no dry wall- are a contemporary
response to the rural vernacular use of indigenous materials,”
Avice du Buisson explains. |
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