Thursday 26 March 2009

Dale and Margo Seymour Residence – Bart Prince

seymour_int

seymour_ext The Dale and Margo Seymour Residence, Los Altos, California 1981-1982, designed by Bart Prince – student of Bruce Goff.  Prince’s site describes the house:

An existing residence had been on this site for nearly 50 years when the Seymours first bought it. After living there for several years they began to notice that with each temblor or minor earthquake, a portion of the house was moving down the hill. When they contacted me they were interested in saving as much of the house as was structurally sound and replace the rest with new living areas, kitchen and master bedroom suite. The site is covered with mature trees which were carefully retained as a part of the final design. The large curving glu-laminated wood beams work in conjunction with the vertical and diagonal steel structure to create a large interior volume within which are suspended the various living area.

It’s one of those houses where so much of the architecture is in the section.seymour-section

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The second picture looks like that of the house after it slid down the hill. The top picture is too cluttered. All those horizontal and vertical lines are tiring to look at, the house doesn't do anything for me.

"It’s one of those houses where so much of the architecture is in the section." Agreed, it is not in the house.

Karen A said...

Are you kidding? This house is magical, especially the garden with all the colorful and mathematcal sculptures by the owner. We spotted the house today and stopped to walk around it. It made me smile and made me cry. I would kill to get in. What a glorious place for children. I only wish my father were alive to see the cactus garden, his passion.