The Birch Fircrest House
I had the good fortune this weekend to
enjoy a tour of a remarkable work of architecture currently under
construction: the Birch Fircrest House designed by Speranza Architecture + Urban
Design. Philip Speranza, AIA offered the personal tour,
describing the design in detail for me. The then-unbuilt project was a winner
of an AIA Southwestern Oregon Design Merit Award in 2018.
Philip is not only the founder
and principal of his eponymously named firm but also a tenured professor in the
School of Architecture & Environment at the University of Oregon’s College
of Design. He teaches design studios in architecture and urban design, media
courses in computation and data visualization, and directs the Barcelona Urban
Design Summer program. According to his College of Design biography, Philip’s research “. . . explore[s] the use of new
geospatial design methods to understand small-scale social and environmental
phenomena in urban design. Speranza has published widely on this subject
through diverse lenses including geospatial information and parametric design, [and]
on-site and off-site data acquisition . . .”
Consistent with Philip’s
research, real-world data, applied across all scales, is what drives his firm’s
work. For his Birch Fircrest House, this entailed a deep analysis of both the challenging
site and the highly specific conditions associated with the microclimates of
its wooded hillside setting. The project is effectively a proof of concept
demonstrating the applicability of fine-grained environmental data to generate
bespoke designs precisely tailored to the specifics of any site and program.
The Birch Fircrest House is perched
above Judkins Point along the ridgeline defining the eastern boundary of Eugene’s
Fairmount neighborhood. Pre’s Rock is mere steps away on nearby Skyline
Boulevard. Operating at the edges of what is possible, Philip purchased the
property fully aware of its considerable challenges and tantalizing potential. Emboldened
by that potential and at a pivot point in his life and career, he pursued what has
become an all-consuming undertaking.
The shadow of a tree dances on the south wall.
The realization of the project
is drenched with Philip’s blood, sweat, and tears. He would not only serve as
its designer but its general contractor as well. He performed much of the construction
labor himself, from clearing the site, to pouring the foundations, hoisting 500-pound
beams into place, and tilting up 15’ tall wall sections (don't worry, he called on friends and utilized wall jacks to help with the really heavy lifting). Keep in mind this isn’t
his “day job;” his position as a tenured professor conducting important
research is. Moreover, he finds time to maintain his professional practice. I
find his level of commitment and energy nothing less than astonishing.
Philip Speranza, AIA
Tilting one of the exterior walls into place.
Equally astounding is the
depth of analysis and design effort Philip and his team lavished on the modest
project. The commitment of time was much greater than most architects can
afford on jobs many times its size.
Philip’s program for the house
was threefold: 1) provide a comfortable 3-bedroom home for himself; 2) include
a possible Airbnb suite; and 3) accommodate an office for his architectural practice. Philip arrayed this
program across four floors within a compact, vertically oriented, metal-clad tower.
Plans
Section
The house responds to the
challenges and opportunities presented by the site:
- The minimal footprint maximizes usable outdoor
area while acknowledging rather than fighting the daunting topography.
- The attenuated volume is selectively cleaved
away to generate a sculpturally interesting polyhedron that has yielded to external
imperatives (such as the creation of useful outdoor spaces whose microclimate
is predictable).
- The spare openings selectively and
strategically exploit the variability of natural light throughout the day and
the seasons as well as the availability of views, whether immediate and
intimate or distant and vast.
- The irregularity of the climatic condition of
the steeply sloped, east-facing site also informed the placement of the
operable windows to optimize passive ventilation strategies (which include
inducing a stack effect for cooling during the hottest months of the year). The
double-glazed, tilt + turn, high-performance windows are manufactured by Innotech.
Taken together, these responses
have ensured a customized fit, rather than a loose “off-the-rack” solution
shaped by generic rules-of-thumb.
Motorized clerestory windows will facilitate stack-effect cooling.
As part of the design effort, Philip
and his team collected and visualized environmental data in detail, such as the
irregular climactic conditions across the property and at different elevations
above it. They took full advantage of available software tools, including Ladybug,
which combines geometry in Rhino and
the parametric interface of Grasshopper with
open-source weather data from EnergyPlus to
create climate analysis graphics and diagrams. Additionally, they conducted
analyses utilizing in-situ Arduino
sensors to measure temperature, humidity, light, and noise values across the lot
during different seasons and times of day.
Further availing themselves of
technology, the team relied upon a laser-scanned, georeferenced point cloud to
describe the site’s dramatic topography, converting the dataset to a precise Rhino/Revit
file, in turn utilizing that file and computer numerical control (CNC) machining
to fabricate the base for a wooden study model.
Study model
These tools contributed toward
a unique solution that accounts for small-scale environmental differences, to a
level of detail that architects previously may only have intuited (with little
or no empirical data or analysis to support design decisions). Once he occupies
the residence and office, Philip intends to measure the success of his design
by monitoring its performance and ability to adjust to environmental conditions
as they change.
The four stories of
wood-framed construction demanded application of the Oregon Structural
Specialty Code, rather than the Oregon Residential Code. The design’s
deceptively simple form disguises heroic structural measures necessary to counter
significant overturning moment forces, which are transferred directly to the
basalt bedrock that underlies the site.(1)
Construction progress photo. Note the basalt outcropping, which has been left in place as a feature within the house.
An in-floor radiant system
will provide heat for the house. Interestingly, Philip explained the radiant
piping will not be embedded within a concrete topping over the wooden subfloor;
it turns out the rapidity of diurnal temperature swings typical here in Eugene exceed
the capacity of thermal mass to absorb and release heat most effectively.
Instead, the tubing will be integrated with the subflooring material. The finish
flooring will be milled from the mature fir trees removed to make room for the
new house.
Philp eschewed adding
projecting decks or balconies to avoid detracting from the building’s severe,
faceted geometry. Instead, he made room for the at-grade spaces outside and
included a large, south-facing Juliet window as an amenity for the 4th floor office.
The Juliet window on the south wall of the 4th floor office.
I initially wondered if
Philip’s reliance upon an intensely data-driven process betrayed the approach
of a narrowly focused technician, rather than that of a well-rounded and
holistically minded polymath. My initial interpretation of that methodology assumed
a slavish dependence upon data-driven computer algorithms and the forms they
generate.
Despite the sophistication of
today’s parametric tools, the level of analysis enabled by computer technology
does not yet approach that which the human mind is instinctively capable of processing,
nor can a limited set of relatively primitive algorithms fully account for the
profundity of our interactions with the places in which we dwell. True architecture
is necessarily more than the sum of discrete, albeit meticulous responses to
environmental and programmatic priorities.
The fact is Philip’s design of
the Birch Fircrest House is very much comprised of gestural moves that express
ideas and educe a desirably intense awareness of place and being. The house is
his essential meditation on the nature of building, dwelling, and place—meaningfully
deepened because Philip is both its designer and builder. Once occupied, it
will transcend the methodology that contributed to the shaping of its form. It
will become Philip’s home and a place for him to work. The parametric tools his
team leaned on merely optimized what will fundamentally be a phenomenological work
of architecture.
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With respect to architecture, Philip
and I are kindred spirits. I look forward to future discussions with him about
the nature of the work we do as architects and its importance, and our duty to create
meaningful, useful, and enduring places.
(1) The
structural engineer for the house was Jok Ang, PE, SE of MAE Engineering.
