The Crawford Residence was situated outside of an urban context, on the slope of an irregular hillside near Santa Barbara. The site has a relationship to both mountains and ocean. Morphosis Architects modus operandi in this instance took the form of excavation, digging into and sculpting the earth long before any structure was elaborated. Inspired by earth artists such as Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson, they began to explore a new interaction with topography and to challenge the object nature of the work.
In elaborating the building out of this complex interplay with the site, Morphosis dispensed with a notion of center or any single point of reference. Instead, the peripheral organization enhances a sense of dispersal, the building breaks up into a series of fragments, ascending or embedding themselves within the hillside. From within, the house is experienced through an enhanced perception of multidimensionality. The result is something of a hybrid structure, a sometimes successful, sometimes uneasy reconciliation of conceptual and pragmatic impulses.
Nevertheless, the Crawford House provided for the elaboration of a new kind of connectivity between site and structure that led directly to the Blades House which was featured on our blog April 12th.
– Material courtesy of Morphosis, more info: http://morphopedia.com/
– Image, drawings and renders are protected by copyright by Morphosis
