INTERVISIBLE DESIGN
WEST RESIDENCE & MUSIC STUDIO
The West Residence is a 4500 sq. ft. high-end residential building located in the beautiful hills of San Rafael, CA. Being both progressive and accomplished engineers, the clients wanted something that was both sustainable and innovative in its conception. The result is a kind of "comet", a building characterized by its simple arcing gesture and organized by a series of radiating lines and three primary non-concentric circles. The concave side consists of tall window-walls facing out towards the edge of the slope and beyond to the San Francisco Bay. The program is unusual in that the spaces are rather modestly sized however they are compartmentalized to allow for exceptional sonic isolation. the head of the "comet" is a sizable performance and music studio with adjacent bedrooms that also function as ISO-booths for recording in complete silence. The form has been highly optimized in its building systems and is a result of a thoroughly iterative and interdisciplinary process.
CORE SERVICES
CONCEPT DESIGN
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTATION
VENDOR SELECTION & MANAGEMENT
DIGITAL FABRICATION
ANALOG FABRICATION
PARAMETRIC CODING FOR DIGITAL FILE CREATION
SHOP DRAWINGS
3D RENDERING & VISUALIZATION
The floorboards of the entire house also follow the non-concentric curves that characterize the form of the building and require each board to be different then the next. With over 1200 unique boards to be made and an equal number of valuable pieces of mahogany they would be made from, I was tasked with creating a semi-automated computational system that would create the digital files to be made on the CNC machine with minimal waste.
I also led the design, detailing, fabrication, and installation of the "integrated ceiling system". This geometrically complex structure consists of warped 2x4s that are mounted to the plywood ceiling substructure and create a special kind of acoustic "Helmholtz" effect, balancing the reflections of sounds between partial diffusion and partial absorption, as specified by the acoustic engineers. The functional aspects of the ceiling are concealed by the otherwise vertebrae-like aesthetic, a look which appears to be perspectivally in constant movement and further reinforces the importance of non-orthogonal forms found throughout the entire house.
I was also responsible for design and fabrication of the exterior "fascia" that circumambulates the entire eave of the house, creating a sleek and modern curving plane that is reminiscent of the lines found in on an aeronautical craft.
Still to be documented in their final form, I also designed and managed the construction of many of the other important acoustical elements in the studio space including hanging clouds that scatter early reflections for recording, double-paned isolated window assemblies that are canted and curved in space, and numerous other wall and ceiling diffusion systems that contribute to the sonic balance of the studio environment.
