Ballston Lake House
Project Type: Single Family Home
Total Built Area: 3,440 SF / 320 m2
Site Area: 1.6 acres / .65 hectare
Sitting on Ballston Lake, the property is a lightly wooded swath of land 615 feet (187 meters) long, that slopes from a rural road on the east to the lakefront edge on the west, 70 feet (21 meters) below.
The assembled precast concrete wall serves as a spine, supporting the floors as they reach to the eastern, southern and western extent of the house. The material and spatial density of the precast concrete shelters the dwelling from the prevailing winds while its assembled mass grounds it to the site.
The floor diaphragm and exterior frame walls, by virtue of their aggregated repetition, act in response, to brace the 'cantilevered' concrete panels against wind load. The lightness of the glass and wood counterbalance the concrete, opening the house, in both plan and section, to the surrounding landscape. Together the wood and concrete establish a hybrid, stable structure; while the glass and concrete create a dialectic of heavy and light, earth and sky.
The planning of the house was developed through an exploration of potential domestic patterns resulting in a spatial organization where the traditional duality of domestic arrangement (the public and private realms) is mediated through spaces of transparency, movement, and repose.
SARATOGA, NY
A standard precast concrete panel width of 8'-8" (264 cm) was repeatedly cast in varying lengths, punctuated by a lyrical selection of apertures. A triad of horizontal surface reveals, cast into the face of the panels, link adjacent window openings and visually reinforce the directionality of the queue of precast panels across the sloping terrain toward the lake. An 80 foot (25m) crane assembled all fourteen panels, a total of over 150,630 pounds (70 metric tons) of precast pre-stressed concrete, in one day. Each weighing up to 17,000 pounds (7,820 kg), the panels were lifted, set in location, and welded to embedded steel plates cast into the foundations and the interior edges of adjoining panels.
Views from within the house extend out to the landscape, to the shifting horizon, and to the interior spaces beyond. The layering of transparent planes elongates the house to include the deck spaces and porches as extensions of the interior space. The main living area expands, under the deep overhang of the west facade to a generous deck. Within the volume of the deck a large outdoor hot tub is situated beneath an aperture to the sun and stars. The ground level fitness room expands to the south to a sheltered patio carved out of the shadow of three maple trees. This patio extends toward the lake and is linked by a stair back to the main deck off the living room.
For more information about this project see:
American Masterworks: Houses of the Twentieth Twenty-first Centuries. Kenneth Frampton and David Larkin, 2008.
DETAIL: Single Family Houses: Concepts, Planning, Construction. Joint Publication by Edition Detail, Munich, Germany and Birkhäuser, Basel, Switzerland. C.Schittich, Editor.
Casabella 660, October '98, with accompanying text by Kenneth Frampton.
Cemento the June 2000 issue.
PROJECT DETAILS
