Wang Residence - Bass Lake, CA

 While listening to Yuja Wang's Vienna Recital on the way back from a summer vacation at Bass Lake, I began to mull over how architecture might meld two seemingly disparate experiences: the vigorous, rhythmically complex, technically exquisite rendition of Philip Glass’s Etude No. 6, and the laid-back vibe of Bass Lake architecture.

This is what I came up with—something that feels familiar to this location by utilizing the ubiquitous and simple A-frame, but recast it as just one element in a more complex composition. It's a multi-part design in which the individual functions within the residence take on their own expression, much like how our body parts each have a distinct character related to their purpose, yet are woven together into one harmonious, hierarchical whole.

In this analogy, the living spaces are the head, the bedrooms the torso, and the carport the feet. The entrance is a kind of hexagonal arm branching off the living space; the kitchen becomes the nose; and the stairs are located in the neck which connects the living areas to the bedrooms. A spine runs through the bedroom wing, linking all spaces to a rear entrance at the open carport.

Each of these "body parts" utilizes computer power to generate it own distinct form. So far, architecture has used computers in two primary ways to aid design. There’s the Gehry Way—using computers to analyze physical 3D sculptural models—and the Hadid Way—using computers to generate parametric designs, free-form shapes manipulated by control points to create flowing, curvilinear forms. Both of these strategies, to some extent, fail to employ one of architecture's most potent features: the ability to move us spiritually through pattern-making in the same way music does. Architecture should be beautiful, not merely a curiosity.

 This project uses computers in a third way: by taking primary geometric forms and manipulating them through extrusion (sometimes along complex paths), rotation, shifting (along multiple axes), and intersection to create new possibilities, then carefully arranging these forms with purpose. By doing so, the classical rules of architectural composition remain intact - proportion, symmetry, hierarchy, unity and harmony, contrast, order, clarity, procession, using materials according to their nature, etc

Many of these rules of architectural composition are ignored in the avant-garde approach, where overall form generation takes precedence over all else. Walk into many Gehry or Hadid buildings, and you'll discover that interior spaces are almost an afterthought. It’s as if: “Okay, we have this cool form—now how are we going to fit everything inside?” And the structural gymnastics required to make these buildings work are often at odds with the form itself.

Computers can seduce us into trying to make architecture look like sculpture, but in reality, it is really more like music. That's where we should go for inspiration.

Soundtrack to project: