hawk cape sable island, nova scotia 2011 / in progress 59th AIA Progressive Architecture Award

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Lester Richard
5 years ago
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1 hawk cape sable island, nova scotia 2011 / in progress 59th AIA Progressive Architecture Award

2 hawk is a studio and house project framed around two cinematic lenses, looking towards an archetypal landscape of ground, ocean, horizon, sky. these two lenses constitute the two formal and spatial components of the building.

5 one lens is ground based, an 8 high and 70 long glazed surface creating an intensified panorama demanding movement along it to perceive its edges. the other is a tower, a 24 high and 10 feet wide glazed surface demanding movement along its length to widen the slotted view defined by it edges.

8 ocean the house is located on the hawk, a point at the far tip of cape sable island. it is the southernmost piece of private property in the province, surrounded by bird sanctuary, beach and ocean. it is remote, distant in many ways, a place where the reality and power of weather is ever present. it is a threshold to the ocean, 234 steps from long, remote stretches of sand beach. the ocean is present in the long view, as a cinematic panorama over 270 degrees, a vast field of blue and grey. it is also a moment of colour from the tower, punctuated every six seconds as the lighthouse flashes, and more often as the waves crash. the house is a device for the ocean.

11 ground the ground remains undisturbed, the house placed on piers and tips of vast sub-terrainian boulders that barely surface. the ground is resilient, tough as the grasses and rock it is composed of. tough as the town, the island and the history of the place. the deck extends from the house, intersected by a sheet of vertical glass. it fills the small site, open in places to reveal more boulders and patches of indigenous grasses. the deck is the last step of the threshold to the ocean.

14 the house is defined by and built from nominal lumber, framed on site by boatbuilders and lobstermen. structure is revealed from a mullionless glass wall, eight sheets long across the horizon, double 2 by 8 s spaced and aligned to create a slotted view to the ocean. the house is a rain screen, allowing the relentless water in, spent, to drop to the site.

17 the building is clad in sheets of aluminum grating, a first defence and part of the deck that can be folded up against the glass when the house is closed. this grating is the deck, the cladding, the roof. a tough box for a place that sometimes ravages architecture.

20 sky the sky is cinema. it is scenographic and dynamic, shifting and moving tone, temperature and experience. the sky is often a blanket of fog, obscuring place and time. often full of relentless wind, sometimes the blue clarity of a continent s edge.

23 the house is open to the sky: the two lenses of glass, the deck on the ground and the long roof point south west into the prevailing wind. rare birds flock, then leave.

26 horizon the horizon is the overarching datum, the measuring device, the ever present, unavoidable. it is expressed as ocean, cloud, beach, sand. only obscured by the fog, but still present in memory and experience. the house measures the horizon, through the low horizontal panorama, where it resides fully and forthright, and through the slot of the window, where it rises and falls as the space is navigated.

29 the horizon defines the experience, moving in and out as the lens is focused. eventually, the house expands, filling the site, magnifying the horizon, enveloping the view. fog may obscure one end from the other, rain passing through between both parts.

32 appendix this is a working place, a place of unromanticized material veracity and radical pragmatism. it is not the coastline of the bluenose and the saltbox. boats smell of resin, not oak. they are made of fiberglass and marine ply, not carefully tapered boards. buildings are clad in asphalt shingles, not cedar. the materiality eschews paint, varnish and wax. the house does the same; patina is welcomed, corrosion and oxidation embraced.

Weather EOG Review Questions

Weather EOG Review Questions 1. Which statement best describes runoff? A Water vapor cools off and changes into water droplets. B Water in the form of rain, snow, sleet, or hail falls from clouds. C Precipitation