Eames House Case Study #8
Table of Contents 3
Arts and Architecture
4
Charles and Ray Eames
5
Eames House Introduction
6
Site
7
Dimensional Data and Construction
8
Plans
9 10
Elevations Bibliography
Arts and Architecture Magazine The Eames House, Case Study #8, was one of roughly two dozen homes built as part of the Case Study Program of exhibition houses in Los Angeles by the magazine Arts and Architecture, the program was spearheaded by John Entenza, the publisher of Arts and Architecture...and supported by the manufacturer of consumer products.
In a challenge to the architectural community, the magazine announced that it would be the client for a series of homes designed to express man’s life in the modern world. These homes were to be built and furnished using materials and techniques derived from the experiences of the Second World War. Each home would be for a real or hypothetical client taking into consideration their particular housing needs.
Charles and Ray Eames From 1941 to 1978, this husband-and-wife team brought unique talents to their partnership. He was an architect by training, she was a painter and sculptor. Together they are considered America’s most i mportant and influential designers, whose work helped, literally, shape the second half of the 20th century and remains culturally vital and commercially popular today. Charles and Ray channeled Charles’ interest in photography into the production of 125 short films. The Eameses also conceived and designed a number of exhibitions.
The Eameses are best known for their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, industrial design and manufacturing, and the photographic arts.
In the 1950s, the Eameses continued their work in architecture and modern furniture design. As with their earlier molded plywood work, the Eameses pioneered technologies, such as fiberglass furniture, plastic resin chairs, and the wire mesh chairs.
Introduction The Eames House, Case Study House #8, was one of roughly two-dozen homes built as part of The Case Study House Program. Charles and Ray Eames, husband and wife, were commissioned to build the inexpensive and efficient homes in California for the United States residential housing boom cause by the end of World War II. They wanted a home that would make no demands for itself, and would serve as a background for, as Charles would say, “life in work” and with nature as a “shock absorber.”
Given that Charles and Ray Eames were both the designer and client for the Case Study House #8, the user description is primarily based on their perception to redefine the concept of a house both utilized for work and play. The Eames House represents a close collaboration between Charles and Ray, each reflecting their individual personalities and interests. As well, the stripped down, minimalistic interior puts forward a modern alternative to the cluttered pre-Second World War American house.
Site In correlation with the site, the house runs parallel a central meadow giving diagonal views of the Pacific Ocean. Located in Pacific Palisades, California atop a 150-foot cliff. This elevation provides a sense of ascendance to provoke the concept of redefining the work verses play methodology of that time.
The site is a flat parcel on otherwise steep land that creates a retaining wall to the west. The response to this condition was a concrete retaining wall that ties together the two boxes separated by a courtyard that make up the parti of the residence.
The Eames House is a beautiful continuation of space. The rooms are liberating, flowing into one another even between floors through the double-height spaces. Private and public spaces are not strictly divided. There are no major divisions other than the separation of the two boxes, which still merge into one another with the courtyard. The house is an unrolling scroll of a Mondrian painting that exemplifies the use of prefabricated materials to create beautiful endless space.
Dimensional Data and Construction The Eames House, completed in 1949, consists of two double-height buildings, one for residential living and the other for work. In all, the site encompasses roughly 1.4 acres on top of an 150-foot cliff and the two rectangular volumes accounting for roughly 3000 square feet. Each bay rises 17 feet and is framed by two rows of 4-inch H-columns set 20 feet apart. In the residential building, kitchen and dining areas are located in the lower story while more private spaces are on the second floor; which provides a view down at the double-height living area. Similarly, the studio portion of the Eames House also features an open plan. Like the residential area, the studio is divided into two stories with the upper floor overlooking a double-height space.
The main structure is a linear configuration of two tall rectangular volumes separated by a courtyard that faces outwards to the meadow.
The rectilinear living component of the house is aligned with the studio along the base of the northeast embankment that allowed Charles and Ray Eames to simplify the scheme considerably. A retaining wall acts as one with the studio as it extends along the hill becoming a critical, vertical support along that entire side of the house at ground floor level.
The two rectangular volumes cover 3000 sq. ft. in a lot that is 1.4 acres. The structures are composed of 20’ x7’4” bays that rise to a height of 17’ The residence is contained within 8 bays and the studio 5 bays.
The living portion of the house has eight bays, with one additional bay used as a shaded overhang. The steel frame that Eames has used is intentionally thin, including: 4inch H-columns for the walls, 12inch deep open web joists for the roof, and the exposed corrugated metal decking used as the ceiling. The use of these exposed industrial materials make the structure very legible in its construction.
Plans
The Eames House is relatively compartmentalized. The service and utility cores are placed inwards towards the central court in both its living and studio divisions. In its close relationship with the site, the house also contradicts the high-tech tendency to reject context as the obvious consequence to concentration on one grand interior span.
A pathway, beginning at the drive, leads up to the main entrance into the residential component of the two separate columns that are directly opposite the spiral staircase. This stair is the only means of access to the first floor. The studio acts as the focal point or ‘center for productive activity’ (equivalent to Le Corbusier’s statement that a house ‘is a machine for living’). The studio space is introduced by a steel ladder stairway leading up to the mezzanine level. This elevation provides a sense of hierarchy, having to ascend to the metaphorical engine of the machine.
A dining, kitchen and utility area, to the right of the main entrance, face onto the central court, echoing the service core of mechanical spaces. Both the house and studio constrained the services at the court’s edge to provide a contrapuntal of positive and negative rhythm of space that are connected by narrow passages. Private spaces such as the bedroom and bedroom hallway located on the first floor achieve a sense of seclusion with partition walls that are similar in character to the shoji screens used in traditional Japanese houses.
Elevations
The solid panels that are painted in various primary colors on the exterior correspond to the character of the functions taking place behind them. This utilizes influences of a classic Japanese house architecture by selectively framing views through the transparent glass around them.
The Eames house has an industrial design which is generated by the use of a steel frame structure. The steel frame creates a grid which has panels of plaster, plywood, asbestos, glass and “pylon� which is a translucent laminate similar to fiber glass. The plaster varies in size and color, it can be black, white, beige, red or blue. The bays are divided into a smaller grid maintaining uniformity. Steel frame is painted black accentuated the industrial grid design.
There is a shift between the transparency and opacity of the panels in the structural grid that creates a sense of hierarchy in the programmatic spaces and also a rhythm in the lighting effects.
Works Works Cited Cited Canales, Francisco González De, Dorota Biczel, and Lucy Bullivant. Experiments with Life Itself: Radical Domestic Architectures Between 1937 and 1959. Barcelona: Actar, 2012. Print. Colomina, Beatriz. Domesticity at War. Barcelona: Actar, 2006. Print. Twentieth Century Houses. London: Phaidon, 1999. Print. “The Eames House Sparked New Thinking in Modern Living.” Inhabitat Sustainable Design. Inhabitat.com, n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2015. Canales, Francisco González De, Dorota Biczel, and Lucy Bullivant. Experiments with Life Itself: Radical Domestic Architectures Between 1937 and 1959. Barcelona: Actar, 2012. Print.