MERIT AWARD

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The awkwardly lovable Garage House shows the potential for providing a family with an elevated design experience in a small house, even if the neighbors think it is just a garage. The simple exterior forms and crisp use of humble materials capture a series of wellproportioned and friendly spaces to support daily life.

Originally named “Garage House” because the neighbors thought the client building a garage based on the concrete block, the Catskills House, located in White Lake, New York, is in reality, a super efficient small family home. J_spy Architecture believes strongly in making buildings that will last, one that future people will want to rehabilitate versus tear down. Using concrete block as the main material will allow this house to age like the brick townhouses of our cities, worth keeping. The windows are solid wood that add warmth to the space and each window opening is protected by an overhang to add to their longevity. These overhangs are also strategically placed as sun shading. The deepest overhang is on the South, and fully blocks the summer sun at noon, but still allows the winter sun to enter and warm up the concrete floor. When mechanical heating and cooling are needed, a super efficient geothermal heat pump was installed to provide radiant heating in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. Although the house looks stand-offish from the outside, the plywood ceiling in the main space adds both volume and warmth. There is also purple felt behind the wood slats in the plywood ceiling to help with acoustics. Finally, with the size of the windows, the detail of the concrete block being both exterior and interior finish, and the concrete floor being continued with a patio, the main room feels like it is almost outside with sweeping views of the property.

Rarely has the firm Eric J. Smith Architect been asked to step outside of its preferred design sensibilities, to venture in a seemingly opposite aesthetic direction.

The client, a lifelong poet, knowing the firm’s practice was primarily focused on traditional homes, called to challenge the firm to recalibrate the architect’s eye and design a “purpose-built, self-sufficient contemporary writer’s studio” in the woods within Greenwich, Connecticut.

The discussion began with the client’s youthful impressions of Walden and the simplicity of “a small cabin in the woods.” The goal however was not to recreate Thoreau’s cabin, but rather to reinterpret it anew.

The result of this journey is the Writer’s Studio. Hugely appealing to the client—poetry is inspired daily and prolifically, fulfilling the main goal. Classical design elements present themselves, the axial & symmetrical plan, connecting to the surroundings with a balanced use of natural light, view, and ventilation. In contrast, every edge, corner, surface, and transition is entirely exposed. The Studio attains a certain “essentialism.”

Intimate, welcoming, and rightsized – the building is only 400 sf of conditioned space. Systems are concealed with an eye towards sustainability, electrical services buried, a well for water, an incinerating toilet eliminating the need for septic, and ground source geothermal provides proper conditioning to preserve a 1700 volume collection of poetry.

The Studio is “of the place and of the person.” Portions appear as having always been there while others are new and transformative. The fieldstone walls are of the land and it’s as if the forest has grown around them, while steel and glass create an openable and transparent enclosure; a cantilevering counterpoint to the mass walls – all reflective of the poet’s passions. Classical and contemporary design are no longer directional opposites in this aesthetic journey.

SMALL FIRMS A WRITER’S STUDIO

GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT

SUBMITTED BY: ERIC J. SMITH ARCHITECT