Le Ranch @le-ranch - Tumblr Blog

Earth House, Jim Olson, 1968

BETWEEN LIGHT AND SHADOW (2011)

On family camping holidays, one of our favourite childhood games was to explore the surrounding semi-wilderness. First we would ‘chart’ it, giving our own names to its distinctive features, and then we would build some kind of fort or refuge. The essential qualities of that shelter (and the impulse behind its construction) were that it simultaneously offered immersion within nature, and protection from it - a view of the surrounding landscape, but also a feeling of safety and domesticity. Of all architecture and urbanism concepts, this ‘Prospect-Refuge’ theory has always felt the most intuitive to me, and its essence has endless applications even within an city environment. In this video Tom Kundig makes reference to it as he discusses the philosophy behind two Olson Kundig projects in the Pacific Northwest. (Image: Mary Randlett)