Five Houses, Ten DetailsEdward Ford's forty years of practicing and teaching architecture have focused on one area: the architectural detail. Yet, despite two hugely influential books (The Details of Modern Architecture, volumes 1 and 2), numerous articles, and lectures given from Vancouver to Vienna, there are two questions Ford has, remarkably, never answered: "What is a detail?" and more importantly, "What is a good detail?" Ford is an architect as well as a writer, so it is notsurprising that rather than answering these questions in a third book, he spent six years on the design and construction of a house. Building it was not an exercise in the application of ideas about detail; it was, rather, a mechanism for answering those two simple questions. Five Houses, Ten Details presents five designsall by Ford, all for himself, all for the same siteonly one of which was built. Each unbuilt design evolved or was abandoned for a variety of reasons.Many simply cost too much; others were based on presumptions that proved inaccurate or unproductive. All, to some degree, are present in the final design. Each of the five designs explores a different aspect of architectural detail: how it acts to connect to or disconnect from a site; how it is expressive of material; how it acts to reveal structure; how itarticulates the act of construction; and how it can be inconsistent, in a beneficial way, with the remainder of the building. Detail for Ford is not an accessory to architecture but its essence. Each design in Five Houses, Ten Details explores and articulates one aspectsite, structure, material, joinery, or furnitureat the expense of the others. Each architectural exploration leads to a larger understanding of construction and a larger understanding of how details communicate. Woven throughout with historical references and specific examples of his design process, Five Houses, Ten Details is an accessible and at times personal account of one man's exploration of architectural detail. |
Common terms and phrases
Aalto abstract detail Alpine Mountain Hut animation anthropomorphic appear architects architecture and furniture articulated detail assembly autonomous Baillie Scott bedroom Bernard Maybeck brick building built built-in furniture Chapter character clapboards concealed concrete connection construction contemporary Corbusier disconnection drywall elements eliminated empathy engineered exploration exposed exterior Fallingwater flitch beams forces Frank Lloyd Wright Free Union Country geometric George Nakashima glass Greg Lynn Hut competition entry idea inglenook Inyo National Forest joinery joints Kahn language of furniture larger Le Corbusier literal living room manifestation material Matteson Matteson Public Library Maybeck minimal modern modernist motifs Mountain Hut competition narrative nature panels planes plywood problem Public Library competition qualities question reality regional Rem Koolhaas roof scale Scott Smith sculptural space spatial steel frame structural expression structural frame STRUCTURAL INSULATED PANEL understanding Union Country School vault visually wall weight wood frame York