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X House Ranch House Moonstone House Nazareth House Beach House Jellyfish House X House
WW Architecture explores the geometry of Palladio
On a picturesque site in the Berkshires, the sort of landscape one expects to find in a textbook studio assignment, a landowner commissioned WW Architecture to design a house. The firm’s husband-and-wife principals, Sarah Whiting and Ron Witte who both teach at Princeton University, first approached the project looking at the tradition of villas and of figures. Starting in plan with the Palladian cruciform, the architects skewed this shape by pivoting the arms around the point of intersection. Whereas Palladio’s plan is a cross with four right angles, the X house plan forms a cross with two obtuse and two acute angles. They then derived the house’s volume by manipulating the relationship of two systems of geometry: a major cruciform of the plan, and a minor, sectional one.
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The architects intend to create a spatial effect opposite to the 16th century villas. In contrast to the Palladian crossing, which is a self-referential center of gravity, Witte and Whiting envision the intersection not as a void that attracts, but rather as a volume that directs movement out into the plan’s arms. This space is resolved with intersecting and entangling lacing, similar to a three-hinged arch.
The geometric modification also accomplishes different relationships with the surrounding landscape. The obtuse angles open to the landscape and provide a panoramic connection to the house’s surroundings. And the acute angles gather the landscape into the house and offer nature at a garden-scale.
Generating sections based on the plan and program, Witte and Whiting vaulted both the living room and the bedroom to produce distinctively different qualities of spaces that overcome the plan’s rigidity. Altogether, the architects used this design to investigate geometry as a catalyst to produce opportunities of form and program. The client has since sidelined all plans to build a house, and so WW’s design will likely remain unrealized, but SFMOMA acquired the X House drawings for their collection.
Formal name of project: X House
Location: Northfield, Massachusetts
Owner: Paula and Aubrey Dickman
Gross square footage: 1,800 sq.ft.
Architect:
WW Architecture
74 Woodland Drive
Princeton, NJ 08540
T: 609-921-2780
F: 815-572-8249
www.wwarchitecture.com
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