living-writing: X House

Site Plan

It's funny how architects like to name their house designs with the alphabet. I've encountered many such names in design publications, while I've done three myself--"L", "E", and now "X". It's not difficult to see why. The letters of the alphabet are easily identifiable shapes, and buildings, when seen from above, like those on Google Earth, tend to resemble blocks of various alphabets. There is a certain pitfall, though, in naming your designs by some abstract shape--the shape itself can be a guiding concept for the design but it can also become a limiting or skewing factor, to the extent that one loses sight of the fact that one is designing a building for human dwelling, and not just to fit some preconceived abstract fancy or principle.

My X house is inspired by a house featured on the ArchDaily website which I saw in the spring. I was intrigued by its shape, the way spaces flow from one to another, and the incorporation of an isolated tower rising out of the sprawling ranch style building. It also recalls to me several of my favorite design principles from Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language, too many to list here but especially in regards to the various forms of family dwellings, No. 75 to 79.

I started the design in April and worked on it from time to time at a snail's pace, putting in details, fixing design issues, and trying to overcome the challenges thrown at me by the Revit software. As is usually the case with me, my designs tend to run on the big side for simple dwellings. This is something I hope to pare down in my future designs.

There are certain advantages in siting a house at an angle to the street, i.e., not strictly following the Cartesian coordinate system of the predominant street grid, if the width of the lot permits it. For one thing, you can orient the entry and garage at an oblique angle to the street and thus gain more privacy. Secondly it can open up rooms with more light and views.

My design is composed of two bars which form an approximate "X" shape, anchored with a vertical volume at where they cross each other. The X-shape is reflected inside through the unobstructed circulation routes, both ambulatorily and visually, at one side of each bar. The effect is achieved by the use of (frosted) glazed pocket doors which separate the more private spaces--the guest bedroom and the office/music room in the E-W block, and the master bedroom in the N-S one--at the farther end of the bars from the more public areas. The vertical volume contains the circulation hub and another office, an "Ivory Tower" for the most discriminating intellectual pursuits.

In addition, there are a couple of features which I'd like to point out -

1. The generous use of wall-height sliding glass doors. I use them on the south facing walls of the kitchen-dining area, the office, the guest room, and the master bedroom, which all open out to terraces, on the ground floor. I also use them between the living room and kitchen/dining area to screen off the after-dinner mess, and in the office upstairs on two sides, which give access to the entire roof deck.

2. An exterior circular stair gives separate access to the roof deck, which provides ample space for an array of solar panels and for various entertaining options.

What follows are the plans, elevations, sections, and some renderings of the interior spaces, which are meant to give you some idea of what the design looks like. Enjoy!