This house is a synthetic reformulation of a palette previously understood as routinized. The conventional suburban ranch house and common techniques of contemporary construction are deployed such that they turn out to be the afterimage of over determined formal structures.

An elongated and folded back frontal pediment, and lateral hip and gable roofs are superimposed and situated so as to suggest two or three axonometric and perspective projections or three sets of parallel lines that have been bent, broken and spliced, such that they are in the process of severing and displacing one another.

In order to become interdependent, the lines turn now as pediment, now as fold, intersection, or edge -- from form to meaning to form again. The house incorporates the morphology of the neighborhood streets and the roof edges and ridges of nearby houses. But this incorporation remains elusive. For example, if one is looking for a datum plane to refer the house to the site, there is some doubt about which walls are fixed and which are skewed.

The house is raised above the flood plane with a garage below. The entrance, an ascending stair carved out of an oblique land form, recalls a meandering sidewalk. A large picture window frames the interior circulation between the bedroom wing and living area. The primary bedroom occupies the volume above the living room.


Location: Sarasota, Florida, USA

Size: 2,600 sq. ft.

Schedule: Design 1991-1992

Program: Private Residence

Team: Preston Scott Cohen (Design)