Boat + House re-examines the traditional boathouse typology through experimentation with vernacular and innovative building technologies.
The complex roof geometry of the building is constructed of double-layer, mass-timber folded plates, first developed in Lausanne’s IBOIS lab for a pavillion at the Vidy Theater. The structural system is based on an anti-prismatic origami folding logic that results in a distinct form and a rigid shell. This shell is composed of CNC-routed wooden panels that interlock through both finger and dovetail joints that allow all connections in the roof and walls to be wood-to-wood only, enabling the entire building to act as one continuous shell structure.
This structure houses a series of interior rooms, sub-spaces, and hollow poche moments, radially arranged around a triple- height courtyard. Meanwhile, a series of interior and exterior appertures create a range of views and lighting effects between these layers of spaces, resulting in highly unique spatial conditions in each area of the building. By weaving together more intimate and grandiose spaces, referencing cabin materiality, and playing on the traditional pitched-roof form, this building offers a vaguely domestic approach to the boathouse type.
Tucked behind a thicket of trees, the building floats above the Houston bayou, its two faces acknowledging the vernacular of the surrounding residential neighborhood as well as the organic form of the bayou. The site is divided by a wide regatta that connects the residential street to a docking station on the bayou at the other end of the site. The back of the building cantilevers over this regatta, mirroring the structural system and geometry found in the roof underneath the building, generating an ambiguous condition between roof and floor. Thus, the ‘belly’ of the boathouse shelters the regatta, while supporting the main floors of the building above. Meanwhile, the upper floors of the building, containing private offices and meeting rooms, are suspended by tensile cables from the dramatic pleats of the roof.
The entire building rests on concrete columns under the flood plane, cradling the wooden structure two feet above the ground. This creates the illusion that the building is floating, while simultaneously sheltering the unconditioned kayak storage space with clerestory slit-windows beneath.
This project uses the formal and material qualities inherent to a double layer folded CLT structure to develop a commercial and domestic atmosphere. It takes advantage of the ambiguity in semantics to consider a new form for an existing typology.
