Pfanner House

Zoka Zola

Clay Knapp

Studio Radutny

Fall 2014

Pfanner House

Zoka Zola

Clay Knapp

Studio Radutny

Fall 2014

Context Studyexamining the city fabric pre and postconstruction

Comparing the two neighborhoods of West Town and Bucktown along with the immediate site context of the Pfanner House, we look at houses built after the Pfanner House’s completion in 2002 to determine if the house had any infl uence on new construction.

Zoning is overlayed on the map to reveal comparable blocks and to show the relationship of the various zoning in the city. CTA stops are shown to indicate ease of access to a particular area. I have also created a hierarchy through elevation on the map model. West Town and Bucktown are both raised above the rest of the city to show that they are being compared, but West Town is the higher of the two. The Pfanner House’s site is the very highest point. The site model is same as this highest point, just enlarged to a more readable scale.

Bucktown was chosen as a control because it has a similar history to West Town and is close by to it. The results of this study show that the areas had about the same building development after 2002. Bucktown, which encompasses Wicker Park, has many active commercial districts that have spurred housing development. West Town is near manufacturing areas that do not draw people from across Chicago, however, residents have cited a change in the social fabric from closed off and isolated to a more open and friendly atmosphere.

Built after 2002

Built before 2002

Bus Stop

Rail Station

Residential

Commercial

Manufacturing

Planned Developement

Section Studylife and work in the Pfanner House

The spirit of the Pfanner House exists in its section, with the open studio space in stark contrast with the smaller, more intimate spaces elsewhere in the building. As a house an architect designed for herself, Zoka Zola uses the space as both her own home and as the headquarters for her practice.

I began this exercise by taking a barren poche of the section, seen to the right, and adding to it. In order to both bring life to the section and to analyze its spaces further, I populated the home with likenesses of Zoka and her husband Peter, color coding the fi gures based on if the activities they took part in were work or living related. Minimum furnishings were added to help inform the activities. The view seen looking north is shown behind the home, relating it to its context and demonstrating the concept of openness, seen not only in the interior spaces but also in the relationship of the inside to the outside. The projected fl oor plan diagrams different routes of entry into and out of the home and uses shading to show the three distinctive levels in the main open room.

The diagrammatic model provides a similar analysis using the same system of color coding for work or living-related activities. The areas with the densest numbers of string are the most frequently used and have the highest levels of energy. The pins that stick out the farthest are used to show spaces that are transitional (like stairs), whereas the ones sunken in tend to be destinations (like the studio or the library).

Translating the Section into Three Dimensionshorizontal and vertical planes

As I moved from the drawing to the model, I reimagined the house as a series of sticks, masses, planes, and a hybrid of the three to determine which captured the essence and life of the house the best. Even though each model reviews something new about the home, from its skeletal frame to its compressed spaces, the house as a series of horizontal and vertical planes gives the best understanding of the home since it furthers the investigation of the section.

I built my tectonic model so that the exterior walls could be removed from the house’s body like a skin. The primary feature of the envelope is a shift in the masonry wall that occurs to the lefthand side of the entrance. I chose this point to split the north wall into halves because it was already a natural means of separation. Removing one half of this wall starts to communicate the spaces within; the left half shields the open studio space and the right shields the smaller living type rooms.

Removing this envelope shows all of the planes in three dimensions. Most prominent in the model are the basement’s connection with the rest of the home, the large open space that hosts the studio, entrance, and circulation, and the densities of walls seen as one ascends to the fi fth fl oor. The model can become the section

Internal Modulesa series of sketches on trace

I began the exercise by drafting each of the fl oor plans and elevations of the home. From there, I examined the relationships of the different interior elements, from stairs, to walls, to window placement. From these discovered connections, I was able to split the home into modular systems that had been used to organize the spaces. I cut sections through the middle of these modules to better inform my understandings of the spaces. The modules increased in density as the wall placement and control over the spaces became more complex.

For the composition of the drawings, I drafted the home by hand on yellow trace. In a way, my fi nal deliverable was also my process, as I erased, changed lineweights, and built upon my earliest trace sketches for the fi nal drawing. I underlayed the trace drawing with red and white paper to help express materiality as well as voids. The red with the yellow trace is reminiscent of my earlier context map and the composition overall resembles bricks laid out in a pattern similar to how the exterior brick veneer is laid out.

Skeleton with Skincomplex systems in a simple box

Just as the skin exists through brick, the skeleton exists through a compound system of wood platform frame construction and steel columns and beams. Wood studs comprise most of the walls and joists make up the fl oors. For more complex parts of the home, such as the balconies and openings, steel takes the place of wood.

Instead of framing the entire house, which stops becoming informative as the different levels repeat the same framings, I showed the earliest fl oors in the most detail and began to hint as to what was occurring at the higher fl oors.

I had fi rst assumed that the brick veneer shift had a structural reason that informed its design, such as the wall studs thickening to support a taller span. However, learned that the architect had simply increased the air gap to 6” to allow the shift to occur. This means that Zoka could accomplish this shift entirely to her discretion, making it an architectural

Studies in Masonry ShiftsInstead of redesigning the home based on what I would have done, I played with the path the masonry shift follows in the Pfanner House’s facade. The shift that Zoka uses occurs only on the north facade of her home and its primary purpose is to highlight the front entrance. I wanted to learn more about this gesture by creating new shifts based on different criteriaI, giving nine new possible designs rather than a single change.

I unfolded all of the sides of the envelope and laid them down fl at. As I cut new paths according to different factors I was studying, I pulled part of the facade forward to give the home its characteristic shift in three dimensions. Scale fi gues in the drawings help show the different fl oor levels in the home as one would observe them from the street.

I liked the program masonry shift the best because I felt that it did the best job of communicating the complexity of the interior spaces, both in terms of function and size, to those who could only see the exterior.

main entrance

entrances

windows - vertical

windows - horizontal

program

balcony

shadow

street edge

tree context

building context