Wright Chat

Thanks for posting. We will all be interested in the progress. What changes/updates to the original plans had to be made to meet codes?

And I don't think I've ever seen a Usonian that also has a Fallingwater-esque balcony.

Matt
www.LandmarkModel.com

This is probably the site (they are based in Wisconsin)

http://www.predicta.com/index.shtml

some construction photos prior to next weekend's tour

WOW.
From the entry it looks like one steps up to the bedroom wing and down to the living room where the study has a cool interior balcony.
On the workspace side of the house how does the entry level get to the workspace level? I can't seem to find stairs on that end.

I am unable to understand the roof framing over the living room. I feel certain this must be one of those cases where he installed anti-gravitational devices in the soffits.

Are the large wood mullions in the shot directly above built over a thermal break in the slab? I could not be sure from the previous shots if those long run pours were separated or not.

Thanks for letting us have a look into this. Much appreciated.

the framing of the roof over the living room is complicated. I think Wes Peters was behind this, but basically there are two steel beams that cantilever out over the room from the masonry piers on each end. The lower roof, beneath the clerestories, is hung from the upper roof on one side and supported by the glass wall on the other, giving the appearance of a floating wall.

The interior and exterior slabs are poured with a thermal break between consisting of 2 inch thick piece of rigid board, as a great deal of heat can be lost at the edge of the slab.

outside in:
What product/system did you use for the red tinting of the concrete slab? Is the same system to be used for both indoor and outdoor applications?

Thanks for sharing pics BTW, this is a joy to see.

L.M. Scofield with a tinted sealer.

Owner has also purchased two gallons of Kemiko Wax from the director of the Kraus House in St. Louis for ongoing maintenance - highly recommended for concrete floors as it puts down a "sacrificial layer" to take daily wear and tear, protecting the tinted concrete below.

also - brick work matches existing/original - no flush vertical joints

The fireplace seems remarkably straightforward. Is there another element on its way which might create a more complex or asymmetrical composition?

The whole thing looks great!

It sometimes occurs to me that nothing is entirely "off the menu" for Mr Wright. The occasional Usonian-era symmetrical and (relatively) plain fireplace appears.
Here's one (albeit a bit more lively) from the Baird residence:




Photo by Yukio Futagawa


The plan shape of the bedroom fireplace as seen in the photo posted above reflects what is drawn on the ghosted-in bedroom wing on W A Storrer's plan c. 1993 . . .

SDR

© 1993 William Allin Storrer

I was a little surprised too, but Nope, that's it, straight off the working drawings

It's interesting for me to see another house besides Lamberson which incorporates multiple, colliding grids. I thought ours might be the only one..

We might as well see the photos offered in Weintraub and Hess, FLLW Mid-Century Modern (Rizzoli, 2007). I don't see the three-dimensional
window cut-outs mentioned by Storrer . . .













© 2007 Alan Weintraub

A neglected opus ? Visitors soon will be in for a treat, I think. No one could accuse those ceilings -- with their luscious sand surfaces -- of being "white" !

I keep a brick of that color at hand; it goes so nicely with fir and with mahogany. This house, perhaps like the flesh of certain dogs, has that honey-russet hue in its very bones, surrounding every opening.

The cavernous living-room fireplace should make up for the prosaic one in the bedroom . . . ?

SDR

There have been three or four Wright houses that I've been in that I have audibly gasped at how stunning they were, and this house was one of them.