Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio's Slow House project explores the vacation home as a place that offers escape from a fast-paced urban environment and the ability to reconnect with the city at any time. This drawing shows a series of transverse sections extending from a plan of the building's lower level, tracing the path from the car's rearview mirror (symbolizing travel away from the city) to the house’s cherished water view. The section images show how the house arcs from the entry facade, which is just wider than the front door, to the double-height picture window framing the view. The split passage between the first and second levels, the building's horizontal curve, and the torqued outer wall of the house thwart direct visual access to this view at the structure's southwest end, slowing the visitor's approach to it. The architects have explained that the house "is conceived as a passage, a door that leads to a window . . . a physical entry to an optical departure."
Challenging the conventions of architectural representation, Diller and Scofidio executed this drawing on a translucent sheet mounted on a wooden board and left drawing equipment attached to the final product.
Publication excerpt from The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights since 1980, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2007, p. 79.
Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio's Slow House is an oceanfront vacation home designed for an art collector and entrepreneur. The project explores the idea of the vacation house as a place offering both an escape from a fast-paced urban environment and the ability to reconnect with the city at any time; in (this) drawing..., in fact, a series of transverse sections extending from a plan of the lower level trace the path from the city to the house, with its cherished ocean view. (Challenging the conventions of architectural representation, Diller and Scofidio have executed this drawing on a sheet of vellum mounted on a wooden board, leaving drawing equipment attached to the final product.) The split passage between the first and the second levels, the curved plan, and the torqued outer wall of the house thwart direct visual access to this view, at the structure's southwest end, "slowing" the visitor's approach to it. The architects have explained that the house "is conceived as a passage, a door that leads to a window . . . a physical entry to an optical departure."
Originally from TextEntryID 73726 (TextTypeID 133)
(See 377.1994 for the remainder of this essay)
Publication excerpt from an essay by Melanie Domino, in Matilda McQuaid, ed., Envisioning Architecture: Drawings from The Museum of Modern Art, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002, p. 234.
