Lujan House / Robert Gurney Architect

Jan 2011

Uploaded by Kelly Minner — Filed under: Houses ,Selected , Delaware, Ocean View, Robert Gurney Architect, USA

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In an effort to integrate living spaces with the outdoors while maintaining privacy from Burbage Lane and neighboring houses, the scheme is organized around a centrally located garden. With sixteen foot high ceilings, the eastern volume contains the public living spaces. Continuous clerestory windows assist in providing an abundance of natural light into the space, allowing views to the treetops and sky while minimizing the close proximity of the adjacent houses. A twenty foot wide glass wall slides into a pocket, enhancing the relationship to the outdoors, and provides a sense of living in a garden. The two story western volume is comprised of bedrooms and a small second floor living space. A one story glass link connects the volumes and visually opens to the central garden.

Architects: Robert Gurney Architect
Location: Ocean View, Delaware, USA
Project Architect: Claire L. Andreas
Contractor: Gude and Conard, Inc.
Engineer: D. Anthony Beale LLC
Interior Designer: Baron Gurney Interiors
Landscape Designer: JB Landscaping
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

Modest houses on small lots comprise the Quillen’s Point neighborhood, adjacent to the Chesapeake Bay in Ocean View, Delaware. An eclectic mix of houses, gravel roads ending at the bay and wooded lots provide a nostalgic, informal setting for this new house. The project site is near the end of Burbage Lane, the second lot from the bay with expectations that the adjacent waterfront lot will eventually be developed.

axon

The house was conceived as two simple, flat-roofed volumes, varying in height, intersecting and overlapping a one story circulation space which connects the volumes. The east volume is constructed with cement board, the west volume with corrugated siding and the one story connecting space with the ground face concrete block. The exterior material palette is quiet and subdued. Materials are selected for their expected long term durability, ease of installation and initial cost. The impact of the one story horizontal volume facing the street is intended to reflect the scale of neighboring structures while the narrow two story volumes are oriented perpendicular to the street reducing their apparent scale.

site plan

This house is designed in strong counterpoint to many of the houses built in the last era of abundant resources, expensive materials, and limitless floor area. The house is not large; it comprises three bedrooms and 2400 square feet. The house is constructed with modest materials that include concrete floors throughout the first floor, oak flooring on the second floor and plastic laminate and oak millwork.

The house was designed to achieve a balance between recognition of the picturesque Chesapeake Bay landscape and a more intimate, secluded garden environment. Expansive openings to the private garden combined with smaller, selectively oriented openings toward the greater landscape allow for a sense of privacy while maintaining a sensibility of direct connection to the rhythms of nature.

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: © Anice Hoachlander|HD Photo

: elevations

: elevations

: axon

: axon

: sections

: sections

: floor plan

: floor plan

: site plan

: site plan

* Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.

Cite:
Minner , Kelly . "Lujan House / Robert Gurney Architect" 26 Jan 2011. ArchDaily. Accessed 16 May 2012. <http://www.archdaily.com/105577>

Comments (5)
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Links to this entry (1)

Shhhhtan says:

The interior spaces are quite nice, as is the courtyard. I’m not as big a fan of the block wall. Clearly it was intentional, but I don’t like how the house turns its back on the street…that would seem more a home in a dense urban environment than this setting.

# January 26, 2011 at 12:20

japrati says:

What a terrible response to this site. It is as if the client told the architect that he inherited this piece of land, but has a phobia of water and nature and never wants to actually see any of it. It is a shame, because the house in and of itself seems to be well done, well detailed, and intraspectively thoughtful. This house is like a luxury car trying to race on the Le Mans.

# January 26, 2011 at 13:31

up_today_arch says:

Small, logic and well done…

# January 27, 2011 at 01:35

gabriel obolewicz says:

Clean, open and elegant, great to live. Congrats

# January 27, 2011 at 03:23

joshua says:

Very well done in terms of space and detailing, but I agree that the gesture of the wall, the inward-looking courtyard, and the lack of fenestration at the ground level is better suited for an urban environment than this sprawling wooded site.

# January 27, 2011 at 09:20

5:34 PM Jan 26th

Bocetos Digitales

Lujan House / Robert Gurney Architect: © Hoachlander Davis PhotographyIn an effort to integrate living spaces wi… http://bit.ly/e1oFPM

5:37 PM Jan 26th

Architecture+Molding

Lujan House / Robert Gurney Architect: In an effort to integrate living spaces with the outdoors while maintaini… http://bit.ly/e1oFPM

5:42 PM Jan 26th

ELS

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5:43 PM Jan 26th

Vincent Beneche