KENMORE

Visit to Kenmore and Site Analysis

We made the trip to Kenmore by bus early on the Friday morning and enjoyed a picturesque drive through Perthshire and past Aberfeldy to arrive in Kenmore. The scenic landscape was true to the beauty of the Scottish highlands with steep sloping hills and a miriad of colourful trees increasing in density the further we went from Dundee. This set the scene for our site. The entire village is remote enough and so rich in nature to entice anyone who is passionate to the landscape to want to live there.

Before visiting the site we went to the crannog centre which was an interesting experience. This reminded me of projects I did in primary school studying Brochs and Crannogs and the type of people living there.


Inside the crannog was an interesting strucural design with the roof pattern thoroughly, thought out design

I was particularly interested in how the crannogs, although renovated, had managed to achieve such longevity. The reasons for building out on the water also helped me think about my design and the advantages of building on the water. The stone age civilisation used the house on the water for defense, protecting their food and livestock and for status: to show other tribes their power and skill in builing a house on the water.

This was the approach from the main road we walked along from the Crannog Centre. We walked along the main road and one of the first things you see of the village is the site jutting out on to the water giving the impression that its floating. To me this means that the building should be designed in a vernacular style as it is one of the first buildings people see on entering the village and so it should be in fitting with the style and history of the location.





Although this is the main approach i preffered the alternative approach coming from the east side towards the site. Here it is more private and colourful especially in the autumn, it is also quieter way to enter the building.

Our Approach to the Project

FIRST FLOOR

GROUND FLOOR

BASEMENT

The first part of the project was to draw plans of each floor at 1:100

The next step was to build a volumetric model at 1:100, replicating the house and demonstrating the different types of spaces. We made this by measuring the dimensions of each space and cutting it out in cardboard, then wrapping each room in the appropriate colour with tissue paper.

Red = Public External Space

Blue = Public Internal Space

Green = Circulation

Yellow = Private Internal Space

Orange = Private External Space

This model was followed by a circulation model, to show the main routes taken throughout the house. The overall result wasn't as successful as the idea we had in our head and we decided in future it would be more effective to build the model with perspex on the outside of the cardboard pathways.

Hard at work drawing up a site section and western elevation of our house at 1:50 scale.

Building the circulation model caused us to think about how the building stands and where the load-bearing walls were located. We understood this to be a fundamental part of the building as the focus is on structure to allow for the cantilevering floors.

Hence we built a 1:50 structural model through a section of the house to emphasise load-bearing walls.

Our final model was an analytical one which greatly heightened our understanding of the buiding in terms of space and scale. We built this at 1:100 and built a contour model at the same scale to fit witht this. The overall effect characterises the building quite well.

CASA PONCE

Site Plan - Buenos Aires, Argentina

Main entrance over a bridge to get to building. Klotz focuses on a guided circultaion in fitting with the length of the house.

The journey through the house is completely thought out by the architect with the entrance inviting people to the house with a dramtic concrete arch.

Open floor space, showing ribbon windows and views of river. Klotz intended to make the windows low enough to give the water the appearance of cantilevering from the building.

This is in fitting with the style of the building balancing on edge, giving it a delicacy.

This section shows how the weight is focused throughout the house and shows the importance structure has in this design. The purpose of cantilevering the building is to create a sense of weightlessness. It hardly touches the earth and fits in easily with the site's topography. When experiencing the space you feel as if you are hardly in a building because the windows incorporate so much of the environment and the floors seem unsupported by the land.