#brian mackay-lyons

[ofhouses]

768. Brian Mackay-Lyons /// David and Vivian Howard House /// West Pennant, Nova Scotia, Canada /// 1995

OfHouses presents Record Houses, part XVIII. (Photos: © James Steeves. Source: “Architectural Record Houses of 2000″, Mid-April 2000; UME The International Architecture Magazine, no.14; Malcolm Quantrill, “Plain Modern: The Architecture of Brian MacKay-Lyons", New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005.)

[da-ori]

Ghost 1 Lantern - Brian MacKay-Lyons 

[nickkahler]

Today, we have too many choices. Like, when they built Sienna, they built the whole city out of terra di Sienna. They had the bricks out of the soil from the place, right? Or in the Dogon regions of Africa. Everything is made out of the local dirt there—traditionally there was not a lot of choice of what you built out of. So there was a tremendous amount of coherence to the place because it was built out of local materials. Today, we can buy stuff from any place. Get marble from China or whatever, and so the world is starting to look the same everywhere, kind of like the tower of Babel. These consistent, simple places are disappearing

Brian MacKay-Lyons, “On Ecological Contextualism,” 2017

[ofhouses]

802. Brian Mackay-Lyons /// Craig Rubadoux and Mary Cameron Studio /// Rose Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada /// 1989

OfHouses guest curated by onSITE, part II. (Photos: © James Steeves. Source: Malcolm Quantrill, “Plain Modern: The Architecture of Brian MacKay-Lyons”, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005.)

[nickkahler]

There has to be this kind of combination of prospect and refuge with a dwelling. Either you have to understand the world around you, and feel protected—eyes on the world. ... In a way, we think, I would say, a house is not a house without focus. Charles Moore talked about the aspects of a room. Enclosure, light, focus. What makes a house a house is a sense of being centered in the world and a totemic element like a hearth or a kitchen island. There has to be this sense of centering-ness about a house.

Brian MacKay-Lyons, “On Ecological Contextualism,” 2017

[nickkahler]

The other non-object sense of our work is that we see the buildings as helmets that you wear. … Being inside and understanding where you exist in the world in terms of the sun and the wind and the biography. We really designed the buildings to be like helmets to be inside of. In a way, I see a building as a necessary evil; as a kind of opportunity to improve the landscape and get to use a budget to help you make the landscape better. If you’re building a building in a city like a rural house, it’s a chance to mend the city fabric or improve that fabric. We don’t make a big distinction between the city or the countryside.

Brian MacKay-Lyons, “On Ecological Contextualism,” 2017

[markwilliamwales]

PBS Design e2 The Village Architect - Brian Mackay-Lyons.

After attending a series of lectures at LTH in Lund yesterday, including a simple, yet inspiring one by Brian Mackay-Lyons I had to see more. This is great! Narrated by Brad Pitt.