Carter/Tucker House

Klaus-Peter Gast

Description

Sean Godsell’s Carter/Tucker House is an impressive demonstration of the attempt to redefine the theme of ‘home’. Here the relationship of building and façade plays a crucial part, but Godsell does not merely occupy himself with the surface when using the façade to create an innovative effect; he also reorganizes the interior, making it dependent on the chosen envelope. Like many architects in recent years he uses a wooden louvre structure to homogenize the whole façade, which is placed in front of the mainly glazed skin. The building looks like a block, apparently solid, but it is a transparent envelope at the same time. But windows are not used in the usual way as articulating façade elements. Instead, panels can be folded out to provide the necessary lighting and access apertures as needed.

The figure as a totality is also reflected in the interior, as the rooms are seen as installations to be used flexibly. They are divisible cells, none of them impinging on the external envelope form. Access passages between the external skin and internal space with high air spaces illustrate the quality of distance, but also a new perception of the ‘space in between’. Godsell also attempts to redefine the ‘veranda’ theme as a hybrid intermediate zone, in that an unambiguous internal space or an ambiguous internal/external one is created whenever the space is changed by opening the façade panels. The base storey and ground floor have lines of ancillary rooms for adjacent bedroom areas, and the top floor has a combinable living, dining and working area. Space, function and envelope acquire innovative value in this design.