#prickly mountain

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Post-moderne kleinschaligheid (is dit een pleonasme?) gebouwd in 2013 op Prickly Mountain, met de Archie Bunker van David Sellers.

Still amusing himself after more than 50 years, Sellers, with the help of some students at Yestermorrow Design/Build School, constructed an 1,100-square-foot experimental house made entirely out of concrete. Grain patterns from the wooden forms are still visible in the walls. Cement pillars rise out of the spring-fed pool behind the house and support the upper porch. A large fireplace features both clean concrete lines and unfinished stone. Part of the project was about getting back to the same philosophies that formed Prickly Mountain. “When I first came up here, I built buildings that were in all these magazines,” he says. “People would come up and say: ‘I love that house. Do something for me like that. But not quite that far-out.’”

So he’d give them 90 percent. Then another person would come along and ask for 90 percent of the second design. Pretty soon, he was making something stylistically unrecognizable from his passions. “I wanted to get back to the beginning,” he says. “That’s what the Archie Bunker is. No client — just winging it, doing what I thought was the coolest thing.”

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The Houses of Prickly Mountain Part 12: The Bridge House (1967)

The Bridge House, which burned in 1978, embodied the improvisational spirit of design-build as well as the lifestyle of its occupants. A weekend retreat for skiers, the interior spaces contained the twists, turns, and inclined planes one expects to find on a ski slope. The house was organised around a large gathering space that connected the distant views of the mountains through very large windows. The inhabitants of the house moved through the space vertically, using steep stairs and climbing rungs that allowed them to occupy the walls. Once high up, they settled themselves into  hidden sitting-shelves and sleeping-cubbies. The huge glass wall was made of separate pieces, some of which were placed at oblique angles; some of the walls and ceilings were sloped at steep angles. All of these components worked together to reinforce a dynamic sense of movement within the space.

Images + text from Architectural Improvisation: A History of Vermont’s Design/Build Movement 1964-1977

See the full series here.

[jeroenapers]

Lang leve de kleinschaligheid met het Tack House van David Sellers uit 1966, te vinden op de Prickly Mountain in Vermont.

Named for its shape, which comes to one of Sellers’ signature sharp points and pricks the sky, this was the first house of the Prickly Mountain era. As the original case study, it was built with no blueprints beyond a rough sketch of the foundation — and with Sellers and his classmate Bill Rienecke acting as client, developer, architect, and contractor. Stairs appeared where they made sense, Plexiglas formed windows that conformed to the curves and angles of the walls, and cast-off materials became aesthetic focal points.

Not without its quirks (like a refrigerator jutting outside through the wall) and ultra-high stairs that have been known to trip people up, it was the beginning of the design/build movement. One of the defining characteristics of the design/build movement is the way structures grow organically. Sinks are shaped to fit their environment; Plexiglas windows curve based on need. Interiors follow the same sensibility, and the space becomes an aesthetic hodgepodge. Exteriors showcase the inventive geometry that dominates homes on Prickly Mountain. Inside, a staircase twists and turns with abnormally large steps to get from below to above. Watch your shins!

[jeroenapers]

Lang leve de kleinschaligheid met de Pyramid House van David Sellers! Dit bouwwerkje uit 1968, dat te vinden is op Prickly Mountain, zou het ook nu nog als nieuwbouw niet slecht doen in de architectuurbladen.

“A wooden mass of triangles that suggests a Cape Cod rental whose water pipes have been laced with LSD.” That’s how Mike Ives, a reporter for Burlington’s independent weekly newspaper, Seven Days, described the house in a 2008 article.
 A study in angles, the structure juts every which way. Many of the Plexiglas windows appear to be skylights, depending on a dweller’s perspective within the disorienting structure. And again, it’s the product of zero blueprints. The clapboard siding has aged diversely, with coffee browns on one side and weathered greys on the other. Facing down the mountain, a wraparound balcony offers a magnificent view of the valley.

[jeroenapers]

Lang leve de kleinschaligheid op Prickly Mountain met het Dimetrodon van Jim Sanford uit 1971!

The brainchild of Sanford and his University of Pennsylvania classmates Bill Maclay and Dick Travers, it began as a big apartment complex: not a strange concept in cities, but very peculiar in a rural environment such as Prickly Mountain. “The idea was to come up with a structure than anybody could plug a house into,” Sanford explains.

Named after a dinosaur with a large ridge rising from its back that may have helped with thermoregulation, the structure began with no planning other than a cardboard model that still sits in a shared courtyard, albeit a little weathered. Each family built and took responsibility for its own “apartment,” with everyone constantly working together to fix things, and making group decisions. “There was no forethought whatsoever,” Sanford says. “The people who lived there had to subscribe to a common idea, or it wouldn’t have worked.”

(via The Houses of Prickly Mountain, from Collective Quarterly 2 - Sight Unseen)

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The Houses of Prickly Mountain, Part 11: Waitsfield 10, Waitsfield, VT.

Part of Conceptual Design Team w/John Connell, AIA and first two years of construction for Yestermorrow Pro Course. Finished by 2Morrow Studios. Experimental Design/Build house on the Mad River.

Yestermorrow was founded as a place for architects homeowners, architecture students, and buliders to learn different aspects of the design-build process ... the house known as Waitsfield 10 ... began as a conceptual design experiment based on a foundation plan of a rotated square, which became the section diagram for the house. As the house rises from its minimal footprint, it turns to travel horizontally through space and becomes metaphorically un-built as the inside volume transforms into and outdoor deck space, as solid walls turn to frames and lattice, ending in the landscape as one column supporting the end of a plywood box-beam...involving many small classes over a 16 year period (1984-2000)...it is the work of over 100 people.

Images + text from Architectural Improvisation: A History of Vermont’s Design/Build Movement 1964-1977

See the full series here.

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The Houses of Prickly Mountain Part 10: Lovejoy House

This structure is part of the historic Vermont Design/Build Movement as featured in the Robert Hull Fleming Museum’s 2008 exhibition, Architectural Improvement.

See the full series here.

via Robert Hull Fleming Museum on Flickr

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The Houses of Prickly Mountain Part 8: Bolton Valley

This structure is part of the historic Vermont Design/Build Movement as featured in the Robert Hull Fleming Museum’s 2008 exhibition, Architectural Improvement.

See the full series here.

via Robert Hull Fleming Museum on Flickr