Article: Affleck House

DavidC · Post by **DavidC** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:51 am

See inside the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Affleck House in Bloomfield Hills

David

DavidC · Post by **DavidC** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 8:04 am

Walk through the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Affleck House - [2:12]

David

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 12:49 pm

I must admit, Affleck is my least favorite Usonian. That garden room is just not convincing. A short distance away, the Smith House is superior.

dtc · Post by **dtc** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 6:31 pm

What is not convincing about the garden room?
If anything, it needs plants, and more than a couple of them.

This is the problem that arises when these houses are not owned and maintained by an individual or family sympathetic to the building...the personal touch is missing.

peterm · Post by **peterm** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:29 pm

The hyperactive double time video doesn't help matters at all!

Architectural spaces need to be experienced and not just seen as images. I would love to see the house in person... The garden room has always seemed confusing to me, but I'm not sure that's how it feels. Supposedly, it also functions as some sort of a natural air conditioning system, drawing cool air up from a reflecting pool below....

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 10:38 pm

I was surprised to hear RG give Affleck a low personal rating. Yet there is something "quirky" about that "garden room" and yet it appeals to me. Nothing else really quite like it in Wright's work ... I think. It's ambiguous, not really a room, not really a hallway, but I do think it is more a transition space than a destination place. One enters the house and this is the first space encountered. You've gone inside only to be outside again. It almost feels like he's deliberately playing with some kind of disorienting mirror like symmetries and asymmetries.

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 2:06 pm

It isn't a low rating, except relative to other Usonians that I think are better, like Smith, Pope, Pew or Jacobs I.

The Affleck garden room, or loggia, needs more than plants to make it work. The real problem is that opening to the pool below. The cross-section (Mono 6/253) shows glass at the bottom of the opening (operable?), as well as windows and doors closing the loggia off from the living room and the bedroom hallway, which have either been removed or were never built. It seems unnecessarily complicated. To get a view of the pool underneath the loggia, one needs to stand by the parapet and look down awkwardly. Cleaning it must be a hassle. The view adds little if anything to the charm of the loggia, which would be improved if the hole in the floor were removed. It could be more than a fancy porch.

If the loggia were filled with plants again, do you think there would be pots hanging from the skylights? What was FLW's attitude toward hanging plants? I'm not firmly against them, but they do tend to look cheesy, especially when hanging from macramÃ©.

Finally, what about the mattress on that bed, is it historic? It looks funky, like a bag full of corn husks.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 4:08 pm

RG, do you think this Affleck loggia room we're talking about here is unique (more or less) in Wright's work? Wright himself may have thought it didn't work because it does not really occur again or does it? It's really a curiosity of sorts isn't it. It reminds me somewhat of the Wiley living room and trellis. Where else does he build a glass roof like this?
Of course the other place he cuts through the floor is Fallingwater ...right in the living room.
I also wonder if this room ever functioned properly in the seasonal regulation of temperature ... as "advertised." It seems to me like it would be a hot box in the summer and a cold one in the winter.
The students at Lawrence Tech are lucky to have this.

http://www.ltu.edu/affleck_house/index.asp

Unbrook · Post by **Unbrook** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 5:49 pm

I toured the Affleck house years ago, as a part of the Domino's Pizza conferences. The house was relatively unfurnished, so I got a better understanding of the interior from the current video. I thought the garden room must have related to something the client had requested. It does separate the private wing from the public space.

DavidC · Post by **DavidC** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 8:47 pm

peterm wrote:The hyperactive double time video doesn't help matters at all!

On Youtube you can go into the settings (the 'gear/wheel' on the lower right-hand side, second from left) and change the speed from "Normal" to half or quarter speed.

David

DavidC · Post by **DavidC** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 8:53 pm

When I toured Affleck I found that I did like the interior, though it was somewhat dark overall and the garden room is slightly odd. I really like the street view of the home. But when I walked around back, I felt that it didn't sit too comfortably with the lay-of-the-land.

David

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:34 am

Nice shots, both.

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 11:45 am

I didn't realize Affleck was so close to the road, nor that there was a neighboring house so close, nor that there were steps leading up to the roof (deck?) over the living room.

dtc · Post by **dtc** » Thu Jun 11, 2015 12:14 pm

I've toured the Affleck twice and seeing these pics reinforce how special the home is...I find it unique. I heard that some of the property adjacent the house was originally owned by the Affleck's.

It was because of the exterior wood finish at Affleck and Reisley (Sikkens) that we chose to follow their lead and applied it at Dobkins. Why question success?

Imagine walking from the public space through the loggia/garden room to the bedrooms each day and enjoying this wonderful lit space year around.
It is a very special, I could move in tomorrow!