Gwathmey Residence and Studio

Charles Gwathmey – Amagansett, NY 11930, United States, 1966

The original design of the house included an area of ​​just over 110 square meters and included a space for the living-dining room, the kitchen, a master bedroom with study, two bedrooms for guests and a laboratory. A year after completion, a second structure of approximately 45 square meters was added which houses a guest bedroom and a study.
Within the fairly tight budget, design parts were developed that set a precedent for later work. By organizing the house vertically, the programmatic and site constraints were solved through sectional and planimetric manipulations. The guest rooms, the laboratory and the covered terrace occupy the ground floor; the living-dining room and the kitchen are located on the second floor; the master bedroom-study on the third floor overlooking the double-height living area.
Bringing the "public" spaces to full height allowed the exploitation of the wide views and established a relationship between the living areas and the ground floor.
The residence is made up of primary and minimal geometric shapes that appear to be sculpted from a solid volume rather than constructed as an assemblage of different volumes. Manipulation in response to the characteristics of the site, orientation, structure and functional needs of the inhabitants determines that the intersections of these forms are defined by erosion or natural light, or both.
The cladding of the wooden structure is in cedar, a primary material from which secondary and tertiary elements develop. Transparency, perceptual and literal extension and volumetric interpenetration give this small building a unique sense of scale and presence.