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ARCHITECTURE
“COMPREHENSIVELY, WE FELT THISWAS THE MOST SOPHISTICATED PROJECT WE REVIEWED, WITH THE VOICE OF AN ACCOMPLISHED ARCHITECT ATWORK.” Alan Chimacoff, principal of ikon.5 architects in Princeton, NewJersey, had that to say about a Galisteo Basin Preserve home designed by Archaeo Architects. The occasion was the 2014 design awards of the Santa Fe chapter of the American Institute ofArchitects (AIA) on Dec. 11.
“The big idea [of the residence], which is a great big spread pinwheel of long organizing walls standing from the living core of the house out into the landscape, is an intense spatial composition and a true interweaving of building and landscape,” said Chimacoff, chair of the awards jury. He spoke of the “purposeful ambiguity of where the boundaries are between inside and out,” continuing that “the two colors of wall, a warm gray, a lighter one and a dark one, recede and advance in the landscape in ways that promote that ambiguity. But at the same time there is this great differentiation by this one intensely red - a la Luis Barragan - wall that emphasizes the heart of the house and in the long view in the landscape it’s quite an important punctuation mark that says, Look, there’s a special happening in this location.”
The house, built by Hurlocker Homes, was featured on the 2013 Haciendas— A Parade of Homes. Jon Dick, principal of Archaeo Architects, said Michael Hurlocker “didn’t have much input on the overall design— floor plan, exterior elevations, level changes, room sizes— but when it got down to beam sizes and some of the materials, he had an impact on what you see.” Dick praisedDavid Mullin, Hurlocker project manager, for his “meticulous” attention on the house project. The residence is located on a 160-acre homesite, on a building envelope that was defined by the Galisteo Basin Preserve, which is being developed by the Commonweal Conservancy in a manner that conserves much of the basin in its natural state.
Commonweal has chosen building sites that avoid petroglyphs and archaeological sites. “We had to avoid a couple of spots where they found some artifacts, and just to the south of the house are some [prehistoric] terraced planting areas,” Dick said. “Other than the building envelope, all of that is dedicated open space.
“The house and landscape intertwine; the northern portion of the house is excavated into the land while the southern portion rises to meet the panoramic view.” In a statement, the architect wrote of the house “adhering to, yet abstracting, the underlying principles of American Southwest vernacular architecture.” The team incorporated sustainable-building practices, including roof-water harvesting, a 57,000-watt photovoltaic array, a geothermal heating system, and a louvered portál roof to control sunlight into the living room.
“There are four quadrants. The way you enter off of Thornton Ranch Roadwas the least interesting. The other three look out to Cathedral Hill over by Lamy, out to the Basin, and the views to the Ortiz and the Sandias. If my ship came in, I would do landscape art. Michael Heizer, James Turrell, and Andy Goldsworthy are the guys that get my blood pumping. And so, in a way, I was slightlymoving into that territory by sliding these walls out into the landscape. But at the same time I was trying to frame those views. I really did try to do that, to let the house give itself over to the landscape.”
Dick has beenworking in Santa Fe for 23 years. The native of northern Nevada earned his bachelor’s degree in architecture at the University of Idaho and a master’s in architecture from Cornell Univesity. He started working in the field in Manhattan, including for Steven Holl.
In December, he had to review 125 houses and multifamily units as a juror for the national AIA housing awards. An interesting non-residential project he’s working on is a chapel for the Rivera Funeral Home. “It’s a circle. It’s a cyilinder and thewalls are battered out, as if it’s opening up to heaven. I’m stealing blatantly fromJames Turrell. I’m trying to imbue the space with a sense of spirituality but via natural light, because it’s a nondenominational chapel. So it’s kind of a theatrical black box: you can bring in icons of whatever religion and use different seating arrangements.
“I have about a dozen projects,” he said, heading into 2015. “I’ve never been busier.”