The private house continues to occupy a unique position both in the history of architecture and human imagination. The house, the domus, the home, is at once refuge and shelter. It is the place of communion for the family and its many contemporary variations; for domestic activities, for living, working, eating and sleeping. It is also an intensely private, personal domain capable of infinite variation. Behind our front doors, we are our true selves. The house has long been an object of fantasy--everyone dreams of having a home--and its allure continues to grow, fuelled by the ubiquity of magazines and television programmes celebrating lifestyle and location.
For clients, the aim is to create a place of shelter and stimulation, for the architect the house is both talisman and testing ground. Yet beyond the smoke and mirrors of lifestyle, when an enlightened client meets the right architect, the repercussions can be truly historic. Where would modern architecture be without the Villa Savoye or the Tugendhat, Schminke or Farnsworth Houses? All were calls to arms on a long hard road of experiment and discovery that not only changed the notion of the modern house and how to live in it, but also had a much wider cultural resonance.
Houses are still critical to the ferment and crystallisation of architectural ideas and this issue taps into this ferment by considering how a younger generation of architects is responding to the challenges and temptations of house design. Many young architects sharpen their teeth on domestic projects, often getting work from family members, friends or through other personal recommendations, so adding youthful exuberance and lack of inhibitions to the frisson of invention. Of course this tradition is not new, as most architects start with small stuff; interiors or houses that, in retrospect, can often be seen to encapsulate the key concerns of their subsequent careers. In the late '60s, Foster and Rogers kicked off with an uncompromisingly modern house for Su Rogers' parents at Creek Vean in Cornwall, described by one critic as 'squatting on its craggy site like a limpet scowling in the breeze'. It got them noticed and we all know what happened next. More recently, David Adjaye shot to fame with a series of unorthodox but highly photogenic houses for artists in the more gritty milieu of east London.
The projects in this issue have been selected from over 400 entries submitted for the 2007 cycle of the AR Awards for Emerging Architecture. Within this global cornucopia of architectural enterprise, the private house is consistently the most prevalent building type. In this, the ninth year of the Awards, some 120 houses were received for consideration. However, with only nine featuring in the Awards issue (AR December 2007), many excellent examples remain unseen. To redress this imbalance and delve more deeply into an extraordinary wellspring of creativity, we present a further 20 projects from the 60 or so that were assessed in detail by the jury. (1)
Having witnessed the jurors in action, projects for this issue were chosen by the editorial team, extending points of interest and issues raised by the discussions. It also gives some sense as to how the future work of these young stars will develop, and what preoccupations we may expect to see carried through and explored on larger scale projects. Despite social and cultural shifts, the basic house design brief remains constant and perhaps because it is so thoroughly well known, young architects can give full vent to their creativity, free from the dead hand of developers, cost managers and bureaucrats.
The resulting selection is hugely diverse, both formally and geographically. To give it some structure, projects are arranged in four sections: Craft/Technique, Adaptation/Re-use, Urban/Infill and Remote/Rural. Such classification enables more cogent analysis and comparison, with each section prefaced by an introduction illustrated with project plans, all printed at the same scale to facilitate more detailed anatomical scrutiny.
Adaptation/Re-use consider projects where space in or around existing properties is optimised, through reconfiguration of the interior, or through additional space being added. Urban/Infill extends this to projects where space between existing buildings is used for complete new works. And Remote/Rural shows projects in more isolated open places, where fewer constraints exist. Before this, a sub-category of Craft/Technique presents four delightful examples of how an intense focus on construction and detail has produced distinctive new dwellings.
Though more catholic in its remit, in some ways this issue recalls the attempts of AR editors in the '20s and '30s to examine how Modernism might deliver an optimistic new way of living through the seminal 'Modern House' issues. Then, the words of Lethaby were a rallying call and are still relevant to the endeavours of today's emerging generation, 'We have to prune our building forms as we prune a fruit-tree and sternly cut away dead wood. Whenever we concentrate on some directing datum, some reality like health, serviceableness or even perfect cheapness, true style will certainly arise as the expression of this and the other human qualities embodied'. (2)
By definition, if you can commission someone to design a house, you must be reasonably well-off. However, for younger architects, lavish project budgets are not always the norm and in these pages are many examples of innovation achieved with more modest means. Such responsiveness, both formal and technical, has wider lessons for other types of dwellings. Not everyone can aspire to the (actually extremely unsustainable) idyll of a house on a plot, so new ways of thinking about how we might cultivate a more empathic relationship with each other and the planet are always to be welcomed. In these pages it is clear that architectural imagination is at work in many ways; contemplating space, materials, form, light, context and nature, all underpinned by the changing social dynamic of how people live. It is placemaking at its most fundamental--and most human. THE EDITORS
1. Jury members were Shirley Blumberg, of Toronto-based KPMB; Shuhei Endo from Osaka; Jo Noero from Cape Town; Peter Davey, the AR's former editor and founder of the Awards programme and Peter Cook, architect, academic and AR columnist. Current editor Paul Finch was chairman. Buro Happold and InterfaceFLOR sponsor the Awards programme.
2. AR December 1936, though Lethaby first wrote the words in 1920.
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