Memory Live-Work

This grouping of four buildings on the Intracoastal Waterway for a boat builder was initiated as a renovation/addition to the original structure: a large garage for building small boats and fine furniture with living quarters above. Over the course of four years, the owner retained our company to design alterations and improvements to the original building and grounds, add a guest house, carport, and painting studio. Since each building on this narrow site required a view of the water with proper natural ventilation and lighting, the structures are arranged and offset from largest to smallest along the approach to the waterway.

The original building was improved by the addition of porches with views to the barrier islands. These porches are designed to link the adjacent guest house to the main house/workshop on both levels, as well as link the two buildings to the ground with a galvanized spiral stair. The guesthouse borrows its general form from the main house with a center clerestory “pop-up” for natural daylighting. Inside the guesthouse on the ground level is an “endless” swimming pool, designed to produce a current to provide resistance for water-based exercise. The design of the building’s mechanical ventilation systems and moisture protection measures were carefully considered for use with the indoor pool.

The painting studio, with its broad side facing the waterway is the last building closest to the water. Its siting allows for views of nothing but the waterway, with all buildings behind. A carefully crafted water garden designed to create privacy is located in the courtyard formed by this building and the guesthouse.

Adjacent to the main house and behind the guesthouse is a carport, designed for motorcycle and rough lumber storage. This simple building is open on two sides with a louvered dormer to allow heat to escape through the roof since it is sheltered from sea-breezes along two sides.

All buildings are “one-room-wide” structures in an effort to provide adequate cross ventilation to take advantage of the natural cooling effects of the sea breeze. This concept of narrow buildings coupled with their arrangement on the site allows for the movement of the cooling air freely around the site, at times bouncing and deflecting off one structure and into the next