The Mask House by WOJR

The Mask House, designed by WOJR, an organization of designers based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is located in Ithaca, New York. The small home that measures less than 55 square meters represents a place of seclusion, peace and tranquility.

The Mask House by WOJR is a conceptualized cabin in upstate New York and it was designed as a space of refuge and contemplation for a man who lost his brother, "a place of separation and protection that removes one from the world of the everyday and offers passage to an other world". The building seems to protect its inhabitants from the world outside, from all the requirements and possibilities. Instead, it throws the residents back upon themselves opening a passage to another world.

"[The client] lost his younger brother in the lake that the house will overlook," said WOJR.

The cabin stands on pilotis over a slope and it is sheltered by a large slatted wall that covers the front of the home, behind, it comprises of a compact volume raised on pilotis. Within this 587-square-foot (54.5-square-metre) floorplate, a succession of smaller spaces give sense daily life. In words of architects this sequence is "a series of thresholds that define a scalar sequence of nested interiors — each interior becoming successively more removed from one world and more connected to the next".

Situated in the center is a large open room, a space glazed and a hanging chimney and faces west, towards the lake. The southern wall of this volume contains cooking appliances and some counters.

The room opens, on the opposite side, into a small kitchen on one side. To the north, the architects includ a sleeping place and bathroom. Above the bed, a circular skylight introduce light into the compact space.

The interiors are finished in a light-coloured wood. The only exceptions are the sleeping area – which is lined in a dark, felt-like material – and the bathroom, finished with tiles.

The roof of the home was designed as a terrace, and is accessible via an exterior staircase between the east facade and behind the slatted wall.

Description of project by WOJR: Organization for Architecture

Mask House provides a place of refuge and contemplation for one who lost his younger brother in the lake that the house will overlook. It is conceptualized as a space comprised of myriad sanctuaries—within the context of this project sanctuary is a place of separation and protection that removes one from the world of the everyday and offers passage to an other world.

The transition from everyday to other is drawn-out through a series of thresholds that define a scalar sequence of nested interiors—each interior becoming successively more removed from one world and more connected to the next. The vertical plane of the mask establishes a boundary across the site that creates a condition of sidedness. Mask House endeavors to provide one in search of sanctuary an abundance of opportunities to find refuge within new interiors in dialogue with the surrounding environment.

The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Staircase. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Inside. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Main room. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Roof vision. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Access. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Site plan. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Lake. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Hierarchy. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Simetry A and Simetry B. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Plan. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Roof plan. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Access Elevatin. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Lake elevation. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Lateral elevation. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Longitudinal section. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

Cross section. The Mask House by WOJR. Image courtesy of WOJR

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More information

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Design team

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William O'Brien Junior, John David Todd, Gabrielle Piazza Patawaran, Justin Gallagher, Kian Hiu Lan Yam, Joey Swerdlin

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Visualization

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Alexis Nicolas Basso

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Program

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House/Space of Contemplation

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Area

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587 sqm

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Status

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2013-ongoing

William O'Brien Jr, WOJR: Organization for Architecture

WOJR is an organization of designers based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We consider architecture to be a form of cultural production. Our work extends across the globe and engages the realms of art, architecture, and urbanism.

William O’Brien Jr., principal of WOJR: Organization for Architecture, is an Associate Professor in the MIT Department of Architecture and one of the founding members of Collective–LOK.

In 2013 Architectural Record awarded him with the Design Vanguard Award, a prize given to ten practitioners internationally. The same year, Wallpaper* named him one of the top twenty emerging architects in the world, and included him in the 2013 Architects Directory. He is the recipient of the 2012 - 2013 Rome Prize Fellowship in Architecture awarded by the American Academy in Rome. He was awarded the 2011 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers. In 2010 he was a finalist for the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program and was recognized as a winner of the Design Biennial Boston Award. His parallel collaborative practice, Collective–LOK won the Van Alen Institute international competition to redesign the institute’s headquarters in 2013, and was a finalist for the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program in 2014.

O’Brien has taught previously at The University of California Berkeley as the Bernard Maybeck Fellow and was the LeFevre Emerging Practitioner Fellow at The Ohio State University. Before joining MIT, for two years he was Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Austin, where he taught advanced theory seminars and design studios in the graduate curriculum. At MIT O’Brien currently holds the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Chair and teaches design studios in both the graduate and undergraduate programs. He was the recipient of the 2010 Rotch Traveling Studio Scholarship.

O’Brien pursued his graduate studies at Harvard University where he was the recipient of the Master of Architecture Faculty Design Award. Prior to graduate school he attended Hobart College in New York where he studied architecture and music theory and was the winner of the Nicholas Cusimano Prize in Music. After completion of his graduate work he studied in Austria as the recipient of the Hayward Prize for Fine Arts Traveling Fellowship in Architecture under the sponsorship of The American Austrian Foundation. He has been named a MacDowell Fellow by the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and a Socrates Fellow by the Aspen Institute.