Inside Out House
location: Starlight, PA
date: 1992
contact: hMa | hanrahan Meyers architects LLP
This project, a summer lake house, was designed for a site in Starlight, Pennsylvania just south of the New York border. Conceptually the house is a cube, which has been subjected to the action of carving. This action has created a new space, which becomes at once interior and exterior in its aspect. Inserted into the exposed surfaces of the original solid are objects that mediate between the remaining cubic volume and the new inside/out space. These mediating elements act as conduits for communication between interior and exterior spaces of the house; they also become accoutrements, or exterior furniture for the new inside/out space.
The materials for the house are concrete block and concrete slab, with painted steel and interiors which are sheetrock with a skim-coat of plaster.