Hi everyone! I am writing this blog from a hotel in Santa Barbara – my lacrosse team is up here for Presidents’ Day Weekend to play in the Santa Barbara Shootout tournament. We have four games this weekend, and the weather is gorgeous! Look out for pictures next week!
For the past six weeks my Building Science studio class has been working on a project studying and drawing the Case Study House Program houses. The Case Study House Program, sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, ran from the mid 1940’s to the mid 1960’s and featured houses mainly in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The idea behind the project was to create inexpensive, modern residential housing after World War II that could be easily reproduced. Many well-known architects participated in the project, including Charles Eames, Richard Neutra, J.R. Davidson, Sumner Spaulding, Ralph Rapson, William Wilson Wurster, Pierre Koenig, Craig Ellwood, and Eero Saarinen.
For the project we were instructed to create floor plans, elevations, and perspective drawings of our house and write a brief biography of the architect and the history of the house. I chose to do the Bass House which was built in 1958 in Pasadena by the architects Buff, Straub and Hensman, who were actually all USC professors! For their designs the architects favored the simplicity of post-and-beam designs, which included spacious floor plans and large glass walls. The Bass House features this post-and-beam construction style with a large single floor plan. All major spaces within the house open to interior courtyards or the backyard. The design incorporates a unique plywood vaulted ceiling over the center of the house. There is also a circular brick fireplace in the living room. A large leaning pine tree was placed within the open eaves at the back of the house.
Here are some pictures of my architecture project, plus some of my friends’ projects. Enjoy!
