Ruins of the Millard House

Starting with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Millard House, my proposed addition focuses on emphasizing both a formal juxtaposition between thickness and thinness and a programmatic condition of publicly exposed private spaces. The new addition was rotated 180 degrees and interlocked with the original house by overlapping the two circulation cores, allowing for the entire house and addition to operate as an uncomfortably intimate duplex.

Due to the overlapping, any immediate formal distinction between the original and the diptych is erased, allowing materiality to become the primary tool used to differentiate them. Elevations clearly establish the idea of the ruin and embrace the idea of aging the two halves in different manners. The original half of the house is rendered in concrete, while the new addition is represented as being significantly older and is rendered in cracked and overgrown concrete.

Moving forward, the structure was placed into the realm of Zelda. This translation affected representational techniques and brought challenges of re-conceptualizing room layouts and dimensions, as well as encouraged the concept of the ruin to be brought into the interior. The site plan re-imagines existing site conditions under the Zelda lens.

Lastly, the material concept is fully developed as the house and addition are imagined as an actual ruin that exists in a fantastical jungle.