TROUT FARM RESIDENCE
Trout Farm Residence is a single family house located on the site of an abandoned trout farm on five acres of land in Springdale AR. The 2,800 SF house includes three bedrooms, three bathrooms, an office, and large living/dining/kitchen space.
The clients’ brief was simple: create a modern space that is minimally articulated. To that end, the project focuses on a clear formal language (solid/void), elemental material palette (concrete, glass, charred wood), and large spatial and formal moves dictated by relative proportion. The house is oriented to take advantage of the view of the pond directly on the site, which was historically the first of a sequence of trout ponds that travel down the extended site. Comprised of overlapping volumes, the compact figure of the house embeds into the steep hillside, allowing a multitude of landscape views and interactions.
The exterior and interior of the building reveal a strict formal dichotomy between solid / utility and void / leisure space as expressed through material and formal relationships. The primary leisure void spaces of the house are punctuated by discrete white oak casework volumes that hold all of the utility and functional requirements of the house. The domestic components of utility are emphatically solids within the house; they are read as opaque and concealed. There was a conscious effort - down to the smallest detail - to assure that any component of the house that is utile is concealed within solids so the solid/void language is absolute.
These white oak casework solids are space regulating figures; the primary figures are the utility volume in the kitchen, the master wardrobe, and the laundry/storage casework. The minimal, simple figures belie the intricacy of detail and program held within them - in the kitchen casework there is a bathroom, HVAC closet, utility closet, storage closet, refrigerator, double oven, and pull out pantry. The casework extends from floor to ceiling, has no visible hardware, and has a continuous finish to read as one surface.
In contrast to the strict solid/void language of the house, the floating stair is an anomalous liminal between-space of the house. Because it is both spatial and utile, the stair cedes to both domains of utility and leisure. It links the open space with a volumetric figure that is both open (translucent) and defines edges, and therefore defines itself within the larger space as a space-within-a-space. The stair is a sculptural yet functional object that has multiple readings through the perforated metal. It provides very normative, necessary vertical movement through the house but does it in a way that allows it to be read as “not there”.
TROUT FARM RESIDENCE
YEAR 2019
SPRINGDALE, ARKANSAS
Photos by Nate Friend, King Lawrence
Construction by Reform Contracting
Custom Furniture by American Estates
Upon entering the house, the landing marks a cross axis for the navigation of space through - at this juncture you can look below through the stair to the public realm, up through the stair to the private rooms, and out through the expansive pivot door entrance. From the formal entrance, the user can ascend to the increasingly private levels or descend to the public, entertaining space that opens onto the pond.
Straightforward material rules govern the operations of the house. The material palette of the house is emphatic and elemental. The exterior materials are site-cast concrete, black charred wood and job-built glass assemblies.