Fenlands case study.Jonathan Ellis-Miller's new studio for Mary Banham in the Cambridgeshire Fenlands demonstrates a sleek, tectonic honesty allied to an environmental responsiveness. Mary Banham paints large canvases, six feet square, in bold acrylics. Her new studio house, designed by Jonathan Ellis-Miller and set beside his own earlier studio house (1991) in Prickwillow, Cambridgeshire, is bright and airy; a bold steel structure floating above the Fenlands with expansive views to Ely Cathedral Ely Cathedral (in full, The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely) is the principal church of the diocese of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England, and the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Ely. and a large redundant sugar beet sugar beet, variety of beet used commercially as a source of sugar. sugar beet Variety of beet (Beta vulgaris) that accounts for about two-fifths of global sugar production, making it second only to sugarcane as a source of the world's sugar. factory. Ellis-Miller's own studio house was a homage to the lightweight Case Study Houses The Case Study Houses were experiments in residential architecture sponsored by John Entenza's (later David Travers') Arts & Architecture magazine, which commissioned major architects of the day, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, of Raphael Soriano Raphael Soriano, FAIA, (August 1 1904–July 21 1988) was an influential architect and educator who helped define a period of 20th century architecture that came to be known as Mid-century modern. and Craig Ellwood Craig Ellwood (April 22, 1922–May 30, 1992) was an influential Los Angeles-based modernist architect whose career spanned the early 1950s through the mid-1970s. Although untrained as an architect, Ellwood fashioned a persona and career through equal parts of a talent for good and the new building alludes to the heavier houses of Pierre Koenig For the French general, see . Pierre Koenig (October 17, 1925 - April 4, 2004) was an American architect. Born in San Francisco, received his B.Arch. in 1952 from the University of Southern California, apprenticed under Raphael Soriano among others, and in private and the later, more mature Miesian work of Ellwood. These were the buildings which for Reyner Banham, writing in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , the Architecture of Four Ecologies (1971), conjured up 'the style that nearly...'. But to say that the Banham studio house is referential to the Californian tradition alone would be to misunderstand it. For in the last 50 years since the Eames House in California (1949), Mies' Farnsworth House in Illinois (1951), and Johnson's Glass House in Connecticut (1949), the domestic application of both light and heavyweight steelwork steel·work n. 1. Something made of steel. 2. steelworks (used with a sing. verb) A plant where steel is made; a foundry. steel has been exploited by many British architects. The modern steel house has evolved into a particularly British tradition. Mary Banham had been looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a studio near Cambridge, where her daughter lived, but had not really considered building. However, the Fenlands were accessible to London, she loved the fiat landscape and the light was excellent. And there was, as it happened, a vacant plot next to the Ellis-Miller house. Yet Jonathan Ellis-Miller did not want to replicate his own house. It was a young man's house, designed soon after he left Liverpool University and while he was working with John Winter, and it was consequently cautious and also a little self-conscious. The Banham house demonstrates a maturity gained through 10 years of practice. It is set on a 4m square grid, and is raised off the ground to a roof height of 4m, with 3m ceilings internally. Compared with the 2.3m roof height of its neighbour, it appears very large. The bolted steelwork is bold, the cantilevers are deep and the scale is considerably inflated. But the houses are turned at right angles so as to form a right angle or right angles, as when one line crosses another perpendicularly. See also: Right to each other anti kept as far apart as the site will allow, thus reducing the contrast. Moreover, the application of a cantilevered steel access deck, overhead louvres and broad, Venetian blinds to the exterior of the Banham House serves to emphasize the horizontal and give the building the appearance of hovering, Farnsworth-like, over its site. At night, downlights set under the floor make this seem a reality. The differences between the houses are not just in their scale and in how the materials are handled, but also in their respective programmes. Whereas the earlier house (arranged as small, cellular spaces), lacked thermal mass and employed external blinds to exclude the sun, the new building welcomes it. Passive solar gain is used to warm the broad concrete floor and a 12 sq m bank of Braithewaite tanks (a reference to the Smithsons at nearby Hunstanton), which serve as a Trombe wall. Although essentially open-plan around a kitchen/bathroom core, the internal space can be subdivided by full-height, insulated screen walls which swing open to form a snug around the fireplace and to release the heat from the tanked wall behind. Steel is now being recognized as a green material, but its use, especially in conjunction with walls of glass, needs to be informed if the environmental benefits of the material are not to be negated. With heating bills calculated at less than [pounds]50 per annum Per annum Yearly. , and an eight-year capacity to the domestic oil tank, this is surely a responsible house. For all its Miesian referencing, the Banham House displays its tectonics honestly. Of Mary Banham, Ellis-Miller observed that 'she brought an amazing sense of confidence', and this is apparent in the building. Architect Jonathan Ellis-Miller, Cambridge Photographs Peter Cook/VIEW |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion