Haffenden House by PARA Project. MCHAP.emerge 2014/2015 Finalists.
22/03/2016.
[Siracusa-NY] US
metalocus, PALOMA DE LA QUINTANA
metalocus, PALOMA DE LA QUINTANA
The Haffenden house has been one of the finalists project in the latest edition of Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize for emerging architecture. It is established as a void in the suburbs, a reference object within a homogeneous fabric.
Night outside view. Haffenden house by PARA Project. Photography © Nathan Rader
Outside view. Haffenden house by PARA Project. Photography © PARA Project
Outside view. Haffenden house by PARA Project. Photography © PARA Project
Inside view. Haffenden house by PARA Project. Photography © PARA Project
Inside view. Haffenden house by PARA Project. Photography © PARA Project
Outside view. Haffenden house by PARA Project. Photography © PARA Project
Outside view. Haffenden house by PARA Project. Photography © PARA Project
Outside view. Haffenden house by PARA Project. Photography © Nathan Rade
Outside view. Haffenden house by PARA Project. Photography © Nathan Rade
Inside view. Haffenden house by PARA Project. Photography © PARA Project
Model. Haffenden house by PARA Project.
Model. Haffenden house by PARA Project.
Site plan. Haffenden house by PARA Project.
Floor plans. Haffenden house by PARA Project.
Section. Haffenden house by PARA Project.
Elevations. Haffenden house by PARA Project.
Seeking inspiration in utopic Italian projects and in Russian constructivists, the study based in New York PARA Project designed this house in a suburb of Syracuse. The project has been shortlisted as a finalist in the MCHAP.emerge prize 2014/2015, organized by Escuela de Arquitectura del Illinois Institute of Technology.
Description of the project by PARA Project
Objectives
I prefer to discuss this in relationship to others... I've always been drawn to that project by Pettena. His ice block is a kind of comfortably resting misfit – a great blend of foreign and familiar. I love how it works simultaneously as an object and a void. A type of placeholder for the familiar, but suspiciously foreign, defined strictly by its context. I studied under Gianni for a year as a student actually, (and Cristiano too (of Superstudio) - so have a lot of respect for those italian radicals). But his ice house was always a favorite of mine.
When I first saw the context of the house in Syracuse, Pettena's of course came to mind, and I became super interested in how similar ideas could work as a writing studio, operating more as a nuanced void than a block, a blank place in the suburban realm. Of course, Gianni's project isn't the only reference. I was also very into Melnikov's studio and ideas about masks. The allure of what's actually behind the mask.
Context
The problem was really one of the suburbs and addressing notions of sameness and the generic
Performance
The other real expedient for me in this project was about disorientation... the bookcase uses mirrors, objects (books), and voids as interchangeable. I've been playing with this idea of a "confused divider" a lot lately in various ways... something that collapses the space you occupy with the space beyond you. It's a perceptual experiment in the doubling of space – the tension between the need for a spatial referent, orienting yourself with the space that you cannot occupy. This bookcase is a small experiment in confusing that relationship... taking you out of the referential just a bit.
More information
Architects
PARA Project
Project team
Jon Lott, Paul Knepley, Min Lam, Hilary Pinnington, Cristina Webb.
Client
Private
Year
2014
Status
Built.
Program
Writing studio/library.
Type
Residential.
JON LOTT
Jon Lott is principal of PARA Project, PC., PC., co-founding member of Collective LOK, and Design Critic in Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
He is recipient of the Emerging Voices Award by the Architectural League of New York, the Design Vanguard award by Architectural Record, the New Practices New York award by the AIANY, the Architectural League Prize by the Architectural League of New York, and twice a MoMA/PS1 Young Architects finalist. He has previously taught at Syracuse University, directing the School of Architecture’s New York City Program, is a Leopold Schepp and John E. Thayer Scholar, has been a project editor for PRAXIS: Journal of Writing + Building, and an invited juror at Harvard, Princeton, Rice, Yale, Columbia, MIT, UPenn, Cornell, Toronto, and the Architectural League of New York.
He holds the Master of Architecture with Distinction from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, the Bachelor of Architecture from California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo, and is an NCARB-certified architect, with licensure in New York, California, and Rhode Island.
