To my eye the end result suffers from imprecise detailing and execution. Particularly the slab roof seems poorly differentiated from the supporting planes. Sometimes folding and sometimes floating the roof robs the project of an instantly understandable logic. The front entrance suffers badly from this mismatch. The entrance is coherent with the plan but not with the reality of the house. Therefore we end up in a tunnel that is decorated with a bundle of sticks because no grass will properly grow.

The biggest failing, and least Kahnian aspect of this project is its clumsy siting. Before a building by Kahn was ever a spatial concept it first examined and magnified the attributes of its site. The great architect would then overlay his theory, adapting it as necessary to maximize the value of the experience. Kahn turned ordinary sites to advantage and extraordinary sites into religious experiences.

Admittedly this doesn’t look like a great site. However, I don’t see anything in the siting of this box inserted in the downward slope of a gentle hill. That is really to bad because the structure neither rests upon or in the landscape. Again, the house is made to stick to the conceptual “mission” without adapting to its setting.

The last thing I would say is that the photography of this project does no service to the architecture. Someone who was paying attention would have made the interiors seem less dark. The haphazard Arco lamp in the living room, the bundle of sticks, the three left-over oranges, and the overall lack of composition make this house seem less inviting than it probably is. There is a reason for every architect to invest in quality photography. In a visual medium and a digital world, your work lives and dies by how it is photographed.

Terry Glenn Phipps
http://web.me.com/tgphipps

Note – please everyone take a look at the World Monument Funds list of endangered modern architecture where Kahn’s greatest masterpiece, the Salk Institute, is prominently listed as under threat. http://wmf.org/watch2008/watch.php?id=S8339