Concrete Studio is the name for this particular construction designed by Mell Lawrence Architects for landscape designers and two gardeners. Removed from the house proper, the studio, above a garage and storage space, sits like one of the couple’s many items in their own garden. Following is a tour of this little studio, heavy and textured on the outside but light and smooth on the interior.
Space in a Glance:
Who lives here: James David and Gary Peese, David/Peese Design
Location: Austin, Texas
Size: 750-square-foot studio, 750-square-foot garage
That’s intriguing: The studio is a sculptural form cast in concrete and textured like reptilian scales.
Mell Lawrence Architects
The view in the house at dusk shows an asymmetrical form having irregular openings and an angled roof. The construction is built into a hillside, like the garage is hidden from this view, giving the studio the right existence in the yard, one that doesn’t compete with the backyard. Lawrence found inspiration. “I really don’t know of a stunning landscape in our nation,” he says. “And we are living in a large country!”
Mell Lawrence Architects
A daytime view from another angle shows even more asymmetry concerning the roof’s profile and also the window openings. As well, the concrete texture can be observed, although the variant of the substance is much more conspicuous in this view than the actual texture.
Mell Lawrence Architects
A glance from about the same angle when the sun hits the studio eventually shows the texture through shadows. Lawrence explains the surface as “like reptilian scales,” a pattern used “to catch the changing light of the day”
Mell Lawrence Architects
“The surface of the cement is far from perfect,” he says. “We allowed it to be faulty, sort of rough and fall, which makes it feel more forgiving and relaxed. The thick concrete surrounding the studio is really an inside and an outside layer, with rigid insulating material sandwiched in between.”
Mell Lawrence Architects
A balcony juts from 1 side of the studio, but it does not serve the studio space appropriate; it is in fact an extension of the shower. Thankfully the solid guardrails, in addition in concrete, lend some solitude.
Mell Lawrence Architects
Closer to the studio, the association between it and the backyard becomes more explicit, as does the inspiration for Lawrence. He clarifies: “No matter how perfect you try to assemble the landscape, given its substance palette, it is most commonly a small rough and imperfect, a little wiggly here and there, quite forgiving and relaxed all the while being quite composed and scripted and wonderful. I experience James and Gary’s gardens very much that way. I wanted the studio to follow their lead and pick up on the patterns and sensibilities already at play in their houses.”
Mell Lawrence Architects
Inside, the studio is a mild space, even though its walls are defined by monolithic concrete. Three large openings bring natural light into the pentagon-shape studio: the sliding door, a taller window around the corner (visible in the first photo), and …
Mell Lawrence Architects
… a triangular skylight that contrasts with the walkway to the building (it had been observable in the sliding-door opening a few photos back). This skylight is most likely the most important aperture in the full project, as it strengthens the effort in producing an irregular, faceted form. Otherwise, the construction is all right walls extruded out of the bottom, minus the wall facing the house, which angles in 1 foot in the slab of the studio to the high point of the roof (that is observable in the earlier photo with all the shower balcony).
Mell Lawrence Architects
Given that the little building is used as a studio, it also makes sense that ambient light is exploited. The triangular skylight is set to do precisely that, coinciding also with all the low point of the roof.
Mell Lawrence Architects
The light that comes in from the north is tender, so James and Gary have an appropriate atmosphere for whatever it is that they would like to make. Lawrence hits upon a advantage of the chamfered skylight, which “looks upward to the sky and downward to the valley,” he says.
More:
High Marks for Reinforced Concrete