Oz

Volume 25 Article 11

1-1-2003

Case Study House

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Recommended Citation (2003) "Case Study House," Oz: Vol. 25. https://doi.org/10.4148/2378-5853.1388

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Ply Architecture

Domestic Situations for domestic diversity and flexibility The house is a primary indicator of of the household. In accounting for social, economic and political con- the forty-three million Americans ditions beyond the broader context who move every year and the growing of simply “dwelling.” As a cultural percentage of non-family households symbol, the house incorporates tech- (47.2% in 2000 up from 29.4% in 1970), nological and industrial developments the Case Study House can be occupied and reflects attitudes toward space, efficiently by a single family, an extended time, and mobility. The evolution of family, or even multiple family and the concept of home reveals chang- rental situations.3 Building on the ing demographic patterns such as original Case Study House program, marital status, birth rate, mortality, initiated by John Entenza in 1945, and cohabitation. Population trends the proposal also stresses the idea from the past fifty years in the United of prototype, integrating manufac- States, for example, indicate that the tured and custom-built components percentage of married couples in the to address the various needs of the adult population is dropping, the house. The custom-built ground floor average size of a household (family provides an open and flexible living and non-family) is reducing, and the space for public activities, while the occurrence of non-family households second-floor “lofts” provide space for (unrelated roommates) is growing.1 more private functions. The lofts are These shifting demographics, combined designed as manufactured housing with the fact that Americans move every components that are constructed off- two to three years on average, suggest site and shipped to the site, at which that the house must be flexible enough point they can be built-out and cus- to accommodate a variety of living tomized for the owner/occupant. The arrangements, domestic situations, design allows for phased construction, and economic conditions.2 The notion being complete as either a one-story of a “traditional family” perpetuated house or with one, two, or three of the in the domestic sitcoms of the 1950s second-floor lofts. is increasingly impossible to define, if it ever existed at all. The changing As there is no “traditional” family, demographics portrayed through there is also no traditional “house.” television domesticity are reinforced The requirements of specific clients by statistics of the U.S. Census and transform the house, whether in the suggest that a household adapts and form of owner, landlord, or tenant, for a shifts, grows and shrinks. duration of one, ten, or fifty years. The Cleveland Case Study House provides The design for the Cleveland Case Study for the future of the domestic condi- 56 House is predicated on this necessity tion as a receptacle for the people and objects that are brought to it, enabling the otherwise open landscape defined spaces to be defined by actions and by agricultural hedgerows. At the activities as opposed to constructed scale of the individual plot, the space limitations. is perceived as having a subtractive quality as trees and vegetation are The Democratic Landscape cleared for human occupation. This Thomas Jefferson’s Ordinances of 1784 spatial structure persists even at the and 1785 created the regulations for scale of twentieth-century urban surveying and land acquisition for development. Aerial photographs of the territory west of the Appalachian the proposed site for the Case Study Mountains. The Ordinance established House, Cleveland (located in the first a one-square-mile grid oriented along ring of residential development across the cardinal axes, within which each the Cuyahoga River from the down- six-square-mile section of the grid town) show the mile grid subdivided constituted a township. For Jefferson, into twenty-five foot by one hundred the grid was not simply a formal geo- foot residential lots. metric system it was the armature that would give shape and structure The translation of the spatial con- to the complex relationships between ditions of this rich landscape into individuals and society. Through the the design of the Case Study House form of the grid, simple and accurate occurred in two ways. First, by address- descriptions of individual properties ing the full site as a potential field of would facilitate the private acquisition diverse activities. Then, by reversing of land that would, in turn, guarantee the typical diagram from one where the rights of citizenship in the new the house reads as a figure and the agrarian society. land around it as residual “yards,” to one where the exterior spaces take This homogeneous division of territory on three-dimensional properties. did not, however, render a banal or The yards, therefore, act both as monotonous landscape. On the con- exterior, volumetric figures dividing trary, a rich and seemingly boundless the open space of the first floor and tapestry of woodlots, homesteads, as programmed volumetric spaces and rhythmic patterns of furrowed accommodating various leisure activi- fields emerged between these lines of ties. The intrusion of the courtyards measure that stretch to the horizon. into the otherwise open first floor At the larger, rural scale, the precision allows for a simultaneous reading of of the demarcated fields produces a continuous space flowing unbroken distinct reading of three-dimensional through the glass-walled courtyards volumes (woodlots, homesteads, agri- and, alternately, clearly-defined pock- cultural buildings) dispersed within ets of space delineated by the same 57 exterior volumes. This process results in a fluctuation in the double reading of the Case Study House landscape between figure and void.

The shifting perceptual boundaries of the first floor promote the ability to re-program the space for various domestic situations. If the prefabricated Midwest homestead lofts above take on the characteristics of a “house” within this interior land- scape, satisfying the American desire for individual territory, then, the open space of the lower floor combined with the volumetric exterior spaces can be seen to constitute a public landscape within the site.

Production/Fabrication/ Inversion of Midwest homestead—gardens as Economic Performance positive landscape elements. 1) rooftop meadow, Building on the original case study indigenous grasses; 2) vine wall, English ivy and trumpet creeper; 3) grass lawn with crabapple house program, which stressed the tree; 4) deciduous hedge, flowering viburnum; notion of the prototype, our proposal 5) vine scrim, Virginia creeper and climbing attempts to synthesize issues of the hydrangea; 6) wildflower lawn prototypical and the specific integrat- ing both manufactured and custom built components to address the vari- engineering fee of $1,750 (a one-time unit, adding value to the property and each space regardless of the specific ous needs of the house. The strategy fee for getting state approval), a cran- generating income that can offset the program. The intention is not that for our Case Study House proposes a ing fee of $1,000 based on four hours cost of the higher investment. the boundaries between inside and custom built first floor that provides at $250 per hour for a crane service, outside are blurred, but that the exte- open and flexible living space with and a shipping fee of $1,250 per loft Courtyard Gardens rior space is instrumental in giving loft-style living units located on the (varies depending on location of factory As an alternative to traditional build- greater specificity and distinction to second floor. and site—estimate is from Marlette, ing and site relationships, a series of the interior space. Michigan to Cleveland, Ohio). courtyard gardens are integrated as The lofts have been developed as positive spaces within the architecture. The functions of the courtyards are manufactured housing components Our scheme, when built out with two Garden and building are interlocked, flexible, but the plantings and materials that can be constructed off-site and or three lofts, takes advantage of the elevating the role of landscape beyond are specific to the site orientation and shipped to the site, restricting the existing duplex zoning of the property. its position as leftover space around a climate. Gardens on the north side of size of the lofts to twelve feet wide by In the case of the two and three loft building. The typical frontyard/backyard the site are elevated allowing light and forty feet long. The specifications for options, the possibility exists for one relationships are extrapolated into a color to permeate the space: meadow the manufactured lofts include two loft to serve as a rental apartment with series of landscape spaces providing grasses provide a roof-top alternative by six walls on a two by ten floor with private access from the service court. flexibility and experiential variety from to the typical back yard; evergreen 3⁄4-inch plywood flooring. The walls Based on current interest rates, we can both inside and outside the house. vines climb a two-story wall creating come insulated with R19 and the roof assume a capitalization rate between a vertical garden visually accessible with R38 batt insulation. These units 9 and 10%. This rate takes into account The courtyards introduce natural on both floors; a pool of water reflects include plumbing, plumbing fixtures, a 5% vacancy rate and all operation light, provide spatial definition and light into an adjacent room; a green electrical wiring, and lighting fixtures, costs including taxes maintenance, create year-round connections to lawn and an apple tree contribute to cabinets, and all finishes except a etc. In the Tremont neighborhood the environment. The gardens are the the neighborhood street. finish floor as part of their unit cost. we can assume an average rental rate permanent fixtures of the project, the for a one-bedroom apartment at $500 constant elements that define the rela- Courtyards with optimal southern In addition to the loft’s fabrication, per month. This would set the value at tionships between rooms. Each area of light have a flexible palette of seasonal there are other costs, which have also $54,000 for the loft unit designated as the house has a direct correspondence activities and vegetation: a basketball been factored into our cost analysis. an apartment. This is $32,000 greater with an adjoining courtyard garden, court doubles as a service area as 58 These costs include a fabricator’s than the cost of constructing that creating a distinct character within needed; a dining terrace supports South elevation

Vertical courtyard

Longitudinal section

exhibition and competition sponsored by kitchen gardening and outdoor cook- SPACES Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio, funded by ing; a defined lawn panel provides an the National Endowment for the Arts, among enclose play area and relaxation zone others. With the goal of promoting architect- surrounded by perennial plantings. designed housing for the typical American family, the 1945 Case Study House program became a point of departure to re-examine the house in a twenty-first-century, Midwestern, Notes post-industrial city. The competition jury 1. “America’s Families and Living Arrangements,” included Jeffrey Stream, Robert Bostwick, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Julie Langsam, and John C. Williams, and was Commerce, 2000. headed by New York architect Rafael Vinoly 2. Hennessey, James. Nomadic Furniture. New Location: Cleveland, Ohio Loft interior York: Pantheon Books, 1973, 1. Construction Systems: masonry load-bearing 3. “America’s Families and Living Arrangements,” walls with prefabricated wood frame U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Area: 3,000 square feet Commerce, 2000. Construction Cost: $ 210,000 Materials include: masonry, storefront glazing system, Andersen windows, prefabricated frame system Project Data The House: Case Study Cleveland Competition, Design Team 2002, was the winning entry to an invited PLY Architecture Craig Borum, Karl Daubmann, Gretchen Wilkins and John Comazzi Landscape Architect: Elise Shelley Assistants: Katherine Borum, Kevin Conway, John Fleming, Wei Hu, Randy Knight, Jen Maigret and Erin Ray

With generous support from the University of

Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Cross section Water courtyard 59