Jordan Parsons » Final Project for F08

Final Project for F08

Posted By: Jordan Parsons

Our final project for the fall semester began with this brief.

The thesis of your final project this semester investigates the american tradition of the freestanding country house situated in the open landscape. Applying the spatial lessons of the prior exercises as well as the new topic of spatial transparency, you are to design a landscape in similar architectonic terms as a devise for developing and extending reciprocal spatial relationships with those of your project eleven cube.

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An unmarried college president has purchased a site of extraordinary natural beauty and fine views located on the eastern edge of Lake Erie. The site contains the remnants of an existing hedge nursery. The college president, having seen the work of the first year studio, has commissioned you to adopt your 20’ x 20’ x 20’ cube to the site. As cost is important, your project is to be made of 12” concrete block for the exterior walls and light wood frame construction for the roof and interior planes. Since this is to be a weekend summer retreat, simple insect screens will be placed within your openings and sheets of glass will be added to your roof openings.

Every attempt must be made to extend the volume of the house and it’s spatial interior by means of modifying the landscape hedge. The rules which inform
your strategies should take cues from both the programmatic necessities of the building as well as the unique qualities, attributes, and rituals of the client.

My project emphasized strong views of the lake and a linear flow to the property, with strong views situated in her private space (the second floor) and the main lecture area (the large clearing). I am happy with this project as my first real attempt at space making in a house setting. The diagram (below) shows the relationship of the public, private and mixed use spaces.

It was my first use of a wood shop, aside from my father teaching me how to use power tools and the like, so some of the cuts are a little rough, but I am fairly proud of the model. The digital work we had to do for this project was fairly easy. It consisted of some diagrams and I made a digital model because that is part of my work flow.

As a studio my peers did some great work, its really great to be surrounded by creative people who are amazing influences. This project challenged us all, yet it came as a natural progression of how studio had been going. I cannot wait for more projects like this and well beyond its scope.

View this project at my Behance Portfolio.

Video

Sun Study 2 from Jordan Parsons on Vimeo.