Mack & Merrill
116
Transcript of Mack & Merrill
The 1999 Charles & Ray Eames lecture
Michigan Architecture Papers
MAP 7 Mack & Merrill
Published to commemorate the Charles and Ray Eames
Lecture, sponsored by Herman Miller, Inc.
given by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam
at the College on April 16, 1999.
Editor: Jason Young
Design: Carla Swickerath
Typeset in News Gothic
Printed and bound in the United States
ISBN: 1-891197-10-X
© Copyright 1999
The University of Michigan A Alfred Taubman
College of Architecture + Urban Planning
and Scogin Elam and Bray Architects, Inc., Atlanta
In collaboration with Herman Miller, Inc.
The University of Michigan
A. Alfred Taubman College
of Architecture + Urban Planning
2000 Bonisteel Boulevard
Ann Arbor, Michigan
48109-2069
USA
734 764 1300
734 763 2322 fax
www.caup.umich.edu
mack & merrill the work of scogin elam and bray architects 1
Mack: Now, a note about the lecture. This is really
making me extremely nervous. Merrill and I,
I think we were discussing on the plane ... ! think
we have done this once before. It's really
miserable lecturing with each other.
Merrill : Thank you.
Mack: She makes me nervous. Of course, I have no
effect on her at all. You're going to have to bear
with us. This may take twice as long as a normal
lecture, I promise you, I warn you, and if you
leave ... go right ahead. We'll understand. But
we're not going to speed up.
6
Merrill: They managed to draw the elevation of the
building on the cake.
At the opening of the first building we did for the
Clayton County Library System, the cake was the
shape of the library. They couldn't even figure it
out this time, so they just drew it.
contents circumstance
brian carter right smart
jason young
8
10
throwing together 18 nomentana residence 24 laban center for movement and dance 34 john j. ross -william c. blakely law library 42 carol cobb turner branch library 52 mountain house 66 atlanta pavilion 78 the architect's dream house - the house above the bug line 86 64 wakefield 98
circumstance brian carter
The Charles and Ray Eames lecture celebrates the work of two of America's most outstanding
designers, and connections between art and industry. In their inventiveness, enlightened
patronage, and the serious play of collaborative work, Charles and Ray Eames, together with
Herman Miller, Inc., transformed the landscape of design, not only in America, but across the
world. The lecture also marks the significance of this region relative to that work. Charles and Ray
Eames met in Michigan. They first worked together here, and were to develop deep and rewarding
friendships in this place, friendships with Eliel Saarrinen, his son Eero, the Detroit industrialist
Colonel Evans, and perhaps most significantly, an inspired entrepreneur and furniture maker from
Grand Rapids. Mr. D.J. De Pree was one of the founders of Herman Miller. From their earliest work
together, Charles and Ray Eames and Herman Miller explored the properties of materials, economy,
and the potential of production, in order to make good design more widely accessible. It was work
with integrity and a deep social commitment that led to a long and fruitful period of collaboration.
Work that for almost fifty years produced an extraordinary range of internationally recognized designs.
Those designs are as compelling today as in those moments when they were first made.
This book celebrates the 1999 Charles and Ray Eames Lecture which was given by Mack Scogin
and Merril Elam. Since establishing Scogin Elam and Bray Architects some fifteen years ago, they
too have been collaborating with Herman Miller. Mack and Merrill are also, in their own way,
continuing the trajectory of Charles and Ray Eames. Meaningful exposure to the idiosyncracies
and proclivities of a practice of architecture as important as Scogin Elam and Bray is rare and,
therefore, worth sharing. The combination of images of the work and their own stories about
the projects will hopefully prompt new conversations.
right smart jason young
My grandmother is known to use the term right smart as a unit of
measure. I have always been confounded by the origin of the term,
but it seems to work. Right smart describes the condition of more
than enough. She would ask, "how much ice cream do you want'
A right smart'" It was always enough, and more than enough.
The architecture of Scogin Elam and Bray is a right smart.
Once a year, for two weeks, a small town in Georgia celebrates the harvesting of the sweet onion
that is its namesake. During that time the whole town smells like an onion. So intense is the smell
of onion that the word Vidalia could never be wrestled away from its use as an interchange between
the town and its cash crop.
This verbal interchange is incredibly simple. The intensity of the experience - the town becomes
onion - conspires with the novelty of the sweet onion; itself a paradox. Its sweetness pushes
vegetable towards fruit. You can eat it like an apple. There is an efficiency to this interchange.
It works. A word proves to be durable enough to hold two situations in tension without seeming to
(be a) stretch. Words can gather things together. lncommensurables can assemble and produce
words:
the chicken snake, the catfish, horsefly;
a bird dog, a lightning bolt,
a lean-to, juke joint, the bible belt;
TRUCK STOP. a moon pie, a monster truck.
Oxymoron can be seen as an emblem of incongruities yoked together. A condensed paradox with an
ironic charge, oxymoron is itself an oxymoron. Built from the prefix oxi, which means sharp,
or pointed, and moras, which means dull, stupid or foolish, oxymoron, like truck stop, is an
interchange between a name and a use, both of which are attempts to bind two things together
that are not necessary. The trucks are left running at the truck stop. It's as if the trucks
themselves are ambivalent about the stop.
II
12
The opportunity to reflect on the architectural interests of Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam offers an
inroad into the relationship between ways of seeing and ways of making architecture. While this
might be said of reflections on many architects, there is no practice as celebrated as that of
Scogin Elam and Bray Architects more saturated with the idiosyncrasies of a personal pursuit
of architecture. Mack and Merrill, together with Lloyd Bray, have actively cultivated their own set of
sensibilities through the practice of architecture. The body of work executed by this practice over
the last fifteen years has earned many, many awards, attesting to the fact that they have captured
the particular possibilities of commissions that cover a diverse array of sites, programs, and
circumstances. The numerous awards indicate that their architecture transcends the work that
goes into its making. It is out of a deep respect for the buildings and projects that I attempt to
momentarily divert attention away from them. There is a larger project here.
Mack and Merrill have managed to locate a practice of architecture inside this idea of an efficient
interchange between things that seem incongruous. In their work, architecture, as we might
conventionally define it, finds itself bound to a series of fantastic circumstances the like of which we
have all seen but only a few of us have taken seriously. In the work of Scogin Elam and Bray, the
conventions of architecture are left running. It is as if the conventions themselves are ambivalent
about their own fixity.
Mack and Merrill have given us a lightning bolt. Their practice is full of juke joints and moon pies.
Through these gifts, we might begin to understand the practice of architecture as a switching back
and forth between what is already architectural and what could be.
1\'Ctl u- swcc~~r>a mec:h¥0SinS, won!$ IN\ name ... lhout c~ lilt <tiiJit.- noc neass<~roly new IS •"'·¥ ~esh lhe<e IS a pr~tlilll hefe k IS b..r1cl on 111e ~"" U~ttooseloes.
but a'so on lht P<ada of rtCXIS!'CIJJ'C lhtm, lool<i1e tor !loom. ...S be-11& ~Willi lhefn llOs
practce, hs NIN;l"'a. os lonnod Wlto a notliShong llill<!lft of poetry. toonts:y. ll'ld a - b
ta""& lloonii> b wtoac 11oey are desple a- lendenty 10 be d~c comc>1ex. and st..-r 1lot ni)Sl"!Ut of lilt VetA~ os paonU!y dtar and w~tbwaod, "Itt lull of humor. -·
and or~ Mac:k and Men•l ~ taloen thiS .etY senousiV. constorut"''l a .. ~ ol set1tli lloalos
penolii!lln&. an ethics ol pracoce !Nils challeoiiit111. and an ilJUilloc1Utt mat is edilylnl1,
CorNersallons between Mack and MeniU, whether play!d out with translucent plywood OtlhiC<IIltl
han&f!I'S 111 Uoe bock ol • yclk>w pttk·up Iouck, plumb lhe mysi~QU< lh• l sunounds us. There os
nolhii1g tll•efoed llbOulol lhe ""'"' os lull ol ~ aOCI fll(}ll$l& #UCicS ~ tJecomes mystoQooe
1loroultllhe r~ Bul * doosn~ slop lloeif Mack and Mtml .,. lntt!OSled In the
ma~>losta~ of Cllt.n. They S<tl< Ollllht rdiosynctasoes lhal mark and make a place. a specdiC
bmt, 111 a spoaol QIQMilSlance lllliOI1llnlly. lhey IH ol!servoloo onto h realm of DIOdutaon
Far !rom smpy ..,.,...lhongs.......tlhem, lhey.....,lhose !hongs to ailed lhem I -*1~
lhallht marg,ns of a- priiCICe of aoctedure ~ Med "'IIi -oMCeS lloal w. bebe ~
else. curiOUS ...s tn<~. bul l ltoonk 1he more aco.<ale - has ~~ on 1he ~ns
of !lie>• Ptlltlce of coile<'tJna _...,... that are troemsel><es tantasoc
For Mack and Menll. • •en lecture 1ust happens 1r:> be a medi\Jm N LII\ey are lnttm.llely lamiloar
'Mih I don't mean 10 Wl181'$11hal ardutecture Is 110( ~ 311818w.tiy, Willi Oassion, woth slloU,
14
and insight. It is. The projects published in this collection attest to this. (In fact, Mack and Merrill
are "architect's architects." They spent 17 and 12 years respectively working in the international
practice of Heery and Heery Architects in Atlanta. I can't be su re, but I like to think that they first
stayed in the large corporate practice until they learned how to do architecture right. Then they
stayed until they forgot, or at least saw through it into something more that could be done with
architecture). In their hands, architecture is a medium that is well suited for commenting on our
world(s). They have cultivated their own sensibilities to the point that they can do with architecture
what is usually outside of architecture. While we were busy learning how to use architecture to
solve problems, they were out capturing possibilities using architecture as the net. While we were
reproducing the discipline of architecture, they were out moving its boundary. While we were
instrumentalizing cultural interests into architectural forms, they were busy considering how culture
might (in)form an architectural practice. It might be said that Mack and Merrill were in Vidalia
becoming onion becoming fruit.
Recently, Merrill shared a story about a visit to Daniel Burnham and John Root's Rookery Building in
Chicago. She spoke about seeing the delicate tracery work in the atrium of the building and being
captivated by the virtuosity of the details. She went on to say that she was relieved when she
reached the height in the building where she could see the roof of the atrium. There she was able
to see the crude manner in which the roof and parapet had been waterproofed with multiple inexact
layers of tarpaper. Merrill was as delighted by the messy reality of keeping the water out of the
building as she was intrigued by the level of care evident in the interior ornament.
I was taken by Merrill's ability to "double think." She was able to be simultaneously and equally
moved by two things that seemingly contradict one another. The atrium offered two contrasting
versions of itself at the same time and Merrill was interested in the relationship between them
instead of foregrounding one over the other. I think this attitude is prevalent in the work of Scogin
Elam and Bray. There is a sort of embraced madness in the practice. There is no visible anxiety
about the production of forms, yet you sense that it does exist. There is a productive tension
between the aspirations of each project and the question, "can architecture do that?" There is a
single commitment to a self-reflexive practice, yet three principals collaborate around that
commitment in diverse ways. In a fascinating twist, the practice is the thing over-determined,
not form .
My own interest is in understanding architecture as a term that we can never wrestle away from its
use as an interchange between the form and the form of the practice. I want architecture to be
a verb without losing its inherent charge as a noun. And I have found hope for this in the work
of Scogin Elam and Bray. They have made their ethics of practice available to us and it is
something we can find vita l and nourishing. The projects published in this book are exemplary
in their formal qualities, but sprinkled among the images are invitations to get inside the practi ce
that produced them.
They would never say this themselves, but they are very brave. Courageous, because they do not
shy away from what they have found in the world. Our disciplinary matrix within architecture biases
15
16
origins that are already architectural. Conventions within the discipline are treated as if they are
guideposts to what is inevitable and proper for the work of architects. Mack and Merrill do not
(necessarily) begin with the inevitable and the proper. Their ethic is sometimes more challenging
and less manageable. But they also do not set out to change the conventions of architecture,
or to abolish the inevitability that architects will make buildings with use and meaning. Instead, they
augment architecture with the enduring lessons of the irregular. This is their project: mix together
what we know architecture can do and what we, in our wildest speculations, think
may be possible.
Their BugHouse project is the ultimate example of this ethic. Given the opportunity to project a
dream house, Mack and Merrill resist the temptation to rethink the very nature of architecture.
Instead, they wonder, "what would it be like to live in the South without bugs7" This yearning
for a place just outside the territory of domestic pests sets into motion the ultimate double
thinking. The result is an architecture that cannot be segmented away from the circumstance from
which it is made. Architecture is mobilized as a medium for dreaming about being bug-free.
Bugs and houses - joined now in a new relationship as the BugHouse. This is an assembled
incommensurable. But it is also a condensed paradox with an ironic charge. The paradox involves
the joining of the discipline of architecture (its conventions and its traditions) and bugs. The use of
the word architecture is paradoxical in that it indicates the BugHouse - literally, the form - and it
stands in for the process of thinking bugs in the mode architecture. Architecture means these things
together, at the same time, and forever more.
As an undergraduate student at Georgia Tech, my classmates and I "grew up" keeping track of the
construction of the Buckhead Branch Library and the Turner Chapel at Emory University.
Excitement was in the air each time we snuck onto the construction site. As students we were
lucky. Mack and Merrill were out there doing it. There seemed to be little difference between those
construction sites and our studio. We saw ourselves in those buildings. Idealistic, unrealistic,
governed only by how far our imagination could take us, we saw ourselves there. When we saw
the slate being hung on the frame of the Buckhead Library, we knew that our "world" was the
real world more than it was separate from it. We graduated believing that there was possibility out
there, that if we just kept cultivating our sensibilities, we too might be able to catch that possibility
and use it as fuel inside a practice of architecture.
17
18
throwing together
Mack: There are a number of things that make this a
very special event for us. It is personally very
meaningful, a great honor.
Herman Miller has played a large role in our lives
over the years. Of course, Charles and Ray Eames
have had an effect on every single person in the
design and architecture field , not only in the
United States, but in the world. Their amazingly
humane point of view, their touch for architecture
combined with their skillful and knowledgeable
application of technique and technology makes
them unique. It is a true joy and an honor for us
to be here tonight and to give this lecture in the
D.J. De Pree joined the Star Furniture Company name of Charles and Ray Eames and Herman
in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1909 as a clerk. Miller. Thank you very much for asking us here to
The company, which was four years old at the do this.
time, manufactured high quality, traditional style
residential furniture. Ten years later he became
the President and in 1923 convinced Herman Miller, his father-in-law, and a small group of investors
to join him in purchasing a majority of shares of Michigan Star stock.
They renamed the company, but not until the New York industrial designer Gilbert Rohde visited the
Grand Rapids Showroom of the Herman Miller Furniture Company in 1931 did the idea of
manufacturing simple and flexible modern furniture become of particular interest to them. Rohde
became the company's design leader, and it was his proposals for furniture that led the company to
pursue innovation in both design and technology. In 1933, modern furniture manufactured by
Herman Miller was shown at the "Century of Progress" exposition in Chicago. Six years later, with
sales shipments totaling $160,000, the company opened a showroom there followed by one in New
York and a third in Los Angeles in 1942. By this time, with a new modular system designed by
Rohde, Herman Miller had entered the office furni ture market. As corporate sales increased, the
company phased out the manufacture of all traditional style furniture in favor of modern designs.
19
In 1976, Max De Pree, Hugh De Pree, and
D. J. invited us up to Zeeland, I had absolutely
no idea why we were there. They started showing
us around the factory. We came across ... I' ll
never forget it, we' came across this plaque
of all the people who worked at Herman Miller
at that time. I've never seen so many vowels in
my life on one plaque. Names that had six A's
in them. Of course, so many family members,
it was amazing ... generations working at Herman
Miller. Of course, this had been hallowed ground
for us to see the work done over many, many
years by Charles and Ray Eames, Quincy Jones,
When Gilbert Rohde died, D.J. De Pree invited the architect the practice of Caudill Rowlett and Scott. 1 can
and author George Nelson to serve as design director. From remember sitting in the meeting, I was a very
1944, under Nelson's able leadership, the company was
to establish long-term relationships with a number of
outstanding young designers. Charles and Ray Eames first
started working with Herman Miller in 1946, a partnership
that spanned more than forty years and produced a wide
range of outstanding furniture. Molded plywood chairs
fabricated in 1946 were followed by a series of molded
fiberglass chairs developed out of experiments into airplane
production techniques, the famous Eames lounge and
ottoman of molded wood and leather in 1956, and, two
years later, the aluminum group chairs which led to a series
of new approaches to seating.
young designer then. Finally I just couldn't stand
it. I asked them why we were there, were we
interviewing or something? They just laughed.
They left the room shortly thereafter and never
did tell us why we were there. A few weeks later
we received a call. Herman Miller was planning
to build a factory outside Atlanta. Could we help?
Since that time we've had the privelege of
working with Herman Miller on a number of
occasions on projects of varying size and scope.
They have been a constant for us. The people
at Herman Miller, especially Max De Pree,
have been great supporters of ours. I am not
sure why. I think it may have something to do
with their curiosity.
In 1962 Hugh De Pree assumed the leadership of Herman Miller as President and Chief Executive Officer, with
D.J. De Pree taking up the position of Chairman of the Board. In 1968 the company introduced Action Office,
the world's first panel system for office furniture, designed by Robert Propst and a team of designers. By the
time D.J. De Pree died in 1990, the company had a series of manufacturing centers in America and abroad,
a new Corporate Center in Zeeland, and the Design Yard in Holland, Michigan Continuing to act as an inspired
patron and working with designers from England, Germany and the USA, their design studies in work seating
led to the introduction of ergonomic chairs in 1972 and the recyclable no-foam Aeron chair in 1994. Three
years later, and with sales of $1.5 billion, Herman Miller was ranked by Fortune Magazine as one of the top
twenty-five most admired companies in the United States.
21
22 The showroom for Herman Miller, in Atlanta, was
located in an existing office building. The project
evolved from very interesting conversations with
Herman Miller around their introduction of new
furniture systems. They wanted a showroom that
from the first moment you entered began to make
you rethink your ideas about interior spaces. They
wanted something that was very unfamiliar, a new
kind of geometry and experience, but made in
some way complementary to the way in which
Herman Miller makes their objects and products.
So the initial entry experience wanted to be
unique. After the initial entry sequence, the space
was a bit more familiar, a gallery space where
product was shown as objects on display, as in an
art museum. From there the space became an
even more familiar office space where product
was being used in a day-to-day application.
This was an extremely important project for us.
It was one of our first commissions as .Scogin
Elam and Bray Architects. In the process of the
project's making we discovered wonderful people
who could make wonderful things. For example,
during construction we came face to face with
this column and this overhead thing that goes two
hundred feet back into the plan and ends up in
this point. We had drawn a dot on the plan but
had not explained it in elevation. One day at
the project the builder asked about the dot.
I explained that it was where a column "could
be." He asked, "Where is it going?" I replied, " It
goes through that thing," indicating the overhead
piece ending with the point. "Okay." I came back
two days later and he took me to the site of the
dot. I looked at him, astonished. "Oh my gosh,
what happened?" "Well , the column wanted to
lean a little bit, and then it wanted this thing
added to it." He was right.
Merrill : The Herman Miller Georgia Operations
Consolidation in Cherokee County, north of
Atlanta is currently under construction. This is a
very important and technically interesting project
for us. It is straightforward concrete tilt-slab
construction, which is the cheapest way to build
these big-slab/big-volume buildings in our area.
We are infatuated with this technology. The
concrete slabs are thirty feet tall. Some are
twenty feet wide, and they are only seven inches
thick. It is really incredible, the structural ability
of these panels. Not only do they hold themselves
up, they also hold up the roof structure of the
factory. Sheer size moves this project type into
the realm of the fantastic , where these huge
boxes make their own internal landscape. It's a
great opportunity to reconsider the industrial
building at the end of the century and to continue
a working relationship with Herman Miller into
the next.
footnote 1 "'we"' refers to the group from Heery Architects and Engineers, including Mack Scogin, who travelled from Atlanta to Zeeland for the meeting. The resulting project was the Roswell Facility completed in 1980 just north of Atlanta.
23
nomentana residence
26
Merrill : Margaret had been living for twenty years
in Venice Beach, California. After the 1994
great earthquake we had a call from Margaret,
"Will you do a house for me?" She was ready
to move to Maine. She had what she called a
'green deficit.' She was ready for the East Coast
again. When she bought the property it was under
five feet of snow. It is about three acres of land
overlooking Horseshoe Pond and Lord 's Hill ,
which is part of the White Mountains National
Forest. We can't quite understand, as Southerners,
how you can buy a piece of property under f ive
feet of snow, because if you can't kick the dirt in
the south, you won't buy it, for sure.
This is Margaret with one of her three wonderful
poodles, the architect (overly bundled) from the
south, and the great builder, Mark Conforte.
On our first visit to the site, we began to see what
they call in Maine 'big house, little house, back
house, barn.' It is a way of grouping the rooms of
a house so that people can do their winter farm
chores without being beat up by the weather. We
took that as a cue for collecting spaces together.
We also observed that the 'big house, little house,
back house, barn' usually sat on a flat plane. This
is totally unlike Margaret's site, which drops off to
the pond. So, we built a new datum, a new plane
above the earth for Margaret's house. It takes off
from the saddle of the hill and moves out toward
the pond.
It's a house all about seeing back on itself, so
you're never alone in the house. You 're always at
the house, with the house, as you 're in the house.
The house is all about Margaret. This house could
not have been built for anyone else.
29
As you enter the front door, you are confronted by
a library space, which has a vertical glass well at
its center. So you enter the house, but you're back
outside again. In other words, if it's snowing or
raining, you see the snow and rain right in front
of you and at the same time you're surrounded
by Margaret's library. This is very emblematic of
Margaret. She is a voracious reader. She is a
great outdoors person. She loves all sorts of
sports. Immediately, you understand something
about Margaret and her interests and her
personality. It is also a house about making
tiny spaces - Margaret's program called for tiny,
tiny rooms - and opening them up in various
positions on the site so that they feel much
bigger than they actually are, and so that each
has its own orientation.
31
33
laban center for movement and dance
35
36
Mack: Generally, we don't do many competitions but we
did two last year. The few that we have done have
been important projects for us. This competition
is a dance center, the Laban Dance Center in
London which had a fantastic program based on
the work of Rudolf Laban. Laban was arguably
the inventor of modern dance. He devised a way
to notate dance, and it was the first time dance
had ever been successfully written down or
scored in the same way that music is scored. In
the late 30s, early 40s, if you can believe it, he
was actually building models of his dances, and
some of his drawings of the space of movement
are truly remarkable. He was a committed,
multi-talented person. He was very interested in
day-to-day movement, commonplace movement.
His dances involved the public, not always trained
dancers. Great masses of people moved together
at his 'dance farms.' His work was avant garde
and exploratory. This school continues exactly
this attitude. They have spawned avant
garde companies who learned movement,
choreography, and dance there. The school
also has great outreach programs to the general
public. It is a very, very, interesting place with a
non-hierarchical organization. I could talk
about it forever. =-1~1~ 1~ SSSSl -
~ i T i
When we started the design, for some reason,
we kept thinking about weight and heaviness.
For weeks that's all we talked about. "What was
the heaviest thing that you 'd ever seen in your life?"
"What was the thing that seemed so heavy but had
some sort of effect over time, either erosion or
lightness or displacement, that somehow
established a certain kind of weightiness from
which you could spring or defy gravity, in other
words, dance?" There was a lot of discussion
about all of that. We looked at things, places,
artists. Actually, a very good friend of ours,
a writer and art critic, joined us in discussions
about dance. He said he was an expert because
he had dated dancers for fifteen years. That
was his whole cache for dance. It was a great
opportunity to just talk about the subject with a
critic who is said to make other art critics look
like tax attorneys.
After our writer friend left Atlanta , this is what we
had of the scheme. (a) It seemed perfectly logical
at the time. We had talked about ways in which
the public could interface with the school itself;
literally W!llk through the school on the way to
Greenwich from Deptford .
(a)
(c)
Somehow, we went from that to this. Then we got
a little confused, or even more confused, and
started doing these things!b) and making that. (c)
These were actually serious propositions but now
that I look at them I think "Oh, my God." What
we did was design a park that opened up to
Deptford Creek and a publicly accessible way
to walk through the project. There are two
courtyards - a public courtyard, and the private
courtyard for the school. What we did was, in
effect, de-objectify the program. The program
was actually the residual of these courtyards,
the sort of ground left by the figure of the
courtyards themselves. The courtyards were the
symbolic programs, the outreach to the public.
The non-hierarchical plan reinforced the
non-hierarchical program.
39
I
Merrill : We made about fifty models but we never built
a model of Deptford. The rule was that every
competitor was supposed to bring their white-on
white model and insert it into a model of Deptford
that had been made in London for presentation
purposes. We took our model and inserted it.
I can remember audible gasps coming from the
jury and someone saying "Oh my goodness, who
shrunk Deptford?" Our scheme was a bit
aggressive in scale, but exuberant in spirit!
41
john j. ross -william c. blakely law library
43
Merrill : The aspect most particular to this project is its
location in Arizona. The Southwest has such
an extreme, harsh climate. There is great visual
richness ... incredible light. It is just amazing.
But it is really difficult to allow this light into a
building. We tried really hard to take advantage
of that harsh light. We wanted to introduce it, but
to control it a bit so that it was acceptable. It was
important to us that students who entered the
building at eight in the morning and stayed
there until ten at night would have at least
registered the passing of the day by the
movement of the light.
45
46
Mack: We have always found this project difficult to
explain. You have to go there to get it. There is no
single photograph of this building which is
satisfying to me. The problem with looking at a
single image of this building is that it frames it as
an object, which it is not. The project is all about
edge conditions. It is all about context. It is
involved with the horizon and the expanse of the
sky. It is not about one particular photograph, a
singular moment. We are so conditioned to the
image or the framed moment that it is extremely
difficult to try to show a framed moment and then
talk about something that is broader in scope.
This project always seems to make that
distinction immediate.
The interior is equally difficult to photograph
because it also is not singular. The building is
about a constantly changing sequence of large
spaces and small spaces, from the dome to the
study carrel, and the relationships between them.
The students can find their own places. It is at
once a place for a single person and a place
for a collective body. This is important because
law students are like architecture students in
that they spend a great deal of time in their
building. A variety of spaces makes it more
livable for them.
The project is really about capturing the sky ...
about bringing the sky into the building ... the
presence of the sky ... the sky registered by the
artifact of the building. As with the dynamic
relationship of the spaces, the dynamic of the
light cannot be captured in a single, framed
moment.
50 The client for this project was incredible.
They knew that a law school in the Southwest
could be much different than one, say, in
Washington D.C. From the beginning, they
knew that this project was not going to be a
'traditional .' or 'neo-classical' design. It was not
going to be a design that one would immediately
imagine as a law school building. This is what
made this such an exciting project to work on.
They were so intent on doing something distinctly
and importantly different.
II
A significant constraint on the project was the
tight budget. I think that, in the end, there are
moments in the architecture where this is evident.
It can be said that we could have done something
not so complex in form, simplify the building to
make it easier and more affordable to build.
I think, though, that in doing so we would have
sacrificed many of the larger, arguably more
important expectations for the architecture.
I think the strengths of the building come from its
complexity, a complexity that accurately reflects
the desires of the client and the dynamics
of the place.
carol cobb turner branch library
53
54
Merrill : At the opposite end of the program scale, very
small, and now outside Atlanta in Morrow, Georgia
we are talking about the second library which we
have designed for the Clayton County Library
System. For this project, we're in the land of
"Gone With The Wind" and Double-D Dart and
Embroidery for Men and Women, whatever that is.
I never had the courage to go in.
56
We were commissioned by the Clayton County
Library Board to be the architects for a small
branch library there in Morrow. The site was very
small and would only accommodate the building
and the parking lot. We learned that there were
going to be self-storage units and apartment
buildings adjoining the site. Ranch houses existed
across the street, and Sarge's Broasted Chicken
occupied the area south of the site. The only
really beautiful and reliable element was the
fence row around the site where the pine trees
grew up and touched the sky. Our scheme is
about capturing the pine trees and the sky.
We used the little central tower and the uplifted
roofs as excuses for upward oriented glazing.
58
We took this model to a meeting, crude as it was.
You could move the basswood posts up and down
in order to determine the inclination of the roofs.
We started moving roofs around a little bit and
the Board Members asked us if the roofs on their
building would move up and down. We said we
hoped not.
59
\
\ II I I I I I I I I I I
60 This building became a community event. Kids
from the summer reading groups were invited to
put their handprints in the building. These kids
are standing in line with their rubber gloves on
waiting to make their mark in the stucco. All of
this came about because we were faced with a
very low budget, and we knew we were going to
have to use artificial stucco. We did everything we
could to try to make it richer than it actually was.
The texture on the surface was made by the
workmen. They took pine boughs and tied them
together to make brushes. As the children were
putting their hands in the stucco, the workmen
were beating the walls to get this overall texture.
We did the hand exercise for about three days,
and by the end of the first day word had gotten
out. Grandparents were bringing grandbabies,
and aunts and uncles were showing up with
nieces and nephews. It was really hot weather
and the kids were very good. They stood in line
and the subcontractor helped the kids, each one
of them. Nobody got hurt. We didn't get sued.
. a soft embracing e tilted wallis ' like The space of th l'ttle tower works . ·ce The I d
space. The light IS m . I. ht moves across an 1 g the 1g
a sundial. All day on t We were there one at that spo.
it's very pleasant . d an electrician was tructiOn, an k d
day during cons . the lights. We as e
on the ladder installing orne questions up nd answer s him to come down a h'm alone, that he was
'd no to leave I and he sal •
making art.
0
Mack: I must say ... l'm sorry to interrupt you Merrill...
we almost never show this project to potential
clients. It makes them a little nervous we found
out. I think it's one of the best projects we've ever
done. It's so much at the edge, that I think in
many ways we achieved a certain limit with its
aesthetic. After we did Morrow we didn't need
to do it any more.
mountain house
67
Mack: This house is a bit deceptive. It is the biggest
small house or the smallest big house you have
ever seen. You cannot get the scale of it. You
arrive on a very formal courtyard which is a
tilted plane. It is tilted just enough so that when
you drive up on it you cannot see the edge of the
house. The foreground is destroyed. You literally
think you are at a toy house. It is bizarre what a
minor change in perspective does to the height of
the house. It is a small house. What makes it big,
or appear big, are these space catchers. The
building seems to be making space, or implying
space, or confusing your definition of the limits of
space. Your eye actually appropriates exterior
space into the interior experience and vice versa.
For example, looking from the courtyard into the
house at the art collection there is a confusion
as to what is interior and exterior. It became a
question of how to do a small house in a large
landscape and have the building hold its own;
of how it could be a constant ly changing
experience embodied within a limited program.
69
70
Merrill : The clients for this house are gracious and
generous people and the house kind of comes out
of that. He is an urbanite and she is an outdoors
person. This inspired two different aspects of the
house. It is at once formal and informal, casual
and deliberate. For example, although the
courtyard sequence is forma l - it is a square -
you arrive on axis. But you are on axis with the
screened porch, not the formal front door.
The kitchen has a picture window as a "front
door." It is really beautiful, seeing March or Ron
in the kitchen at the entry. It doesn't even register
as a kitchen because it is so unexpected. They
can see guests coming and they can greet them
before arriving at the front door. When guests do
enter the actual front door it opens into a formal
gallery space. An informal kitchen in the front
door, then a formal gallery entry space. Inside,
the understanding of the kitchen shifts again. It
reads as an object inserted into the front of the
house. The cabinets read more as furniture than
as cabinets.
72
:---- --------: .. </
/
/
73
74
75
76
The contractor has worked in the Georgia
mountains all his life. He did a remarkable job.
The house is beautifully and carefully crafted. The
agreement with him was made with a handshake.
He never came to Atlanta. He simply sent his
invoices for construction each week ... the bills
for materials and the hours he and his crew
had worked.
atlanta pavilion
79
80
Merrill: Every now and then, someone will ask us, "Well ,
what did you do for the Centennial Olympics in
Atlanta in 1996?" This is what we did. We were
asked by the City of Atlanta to design a pavilion
that did nothing more than welcome people to
the city. located at Margaret Mitchell Square,
the site is the heart of downtown on Peachtree
Street. The site was actually above the Peachtree
Center rapid transit station.
We were working with a model of the site and the
downtown context. I had been putting pieces of
wax and clay on the model to try to begin to
understand the scale or size that the pavilion
should be. Mack came by and looked at it and he
said "That's the ugliest looking thing I've ever
seen in my life. Take that off the model." So,
of course, I was humiliated and took it off the
model. Then he had the audacity to step back
and wad up a piece of tracing paper and throw
it onto the model. We were just amazed, because
this is what it was, this was the tracing paper.
We loved the gestural quality of it and the sort
of winged ness of it in celebration.
Mack: A brilliant move on my part. Thank you for the credit.
82
Merrill: Someone went from the office and got a can of
that spray starch, like you put on your collars
when you iron your shirts at home, and we fixed
the wad of paper in place and started measuring
it in a box that had strings attached to it. The
pavilion was all about making a structure out of
wood, out of a replenishable, regionally important
product. We were working with Jane Wernick, a
terrifically talented structural engineer at Ove
Arup's office in london, and the wonderful thing
about working with her was that she and Mack
were both so intuitive about this project, and they
would get in the room together and Jane would
say " Put all of the columns in" and then she
would say "Take half of the columns out" and
Mack would say, "No, put one-third back in,"
and they would go back and forth. Where it hit
down on the plane above the MARTA station was
important because there were key points where
the existing roof structure could take the loads.
It turned out that the wind thrust upwards was
the most important and prevailing force.
Mack: I must say that working with Arup and Jane was
really fantastic. The same can be said of the
Georgia Pacific Corporation who was sponsoring
this project. They were actually going to donate
all the wood products. The covering was
something that we invented with them. We
called it translucent plywood. It actually was
a wood veneer sandwiched between fiberglass.
The process for making it was much like a typical
plywood lamination process. It allowed us about
a one-eighth inch thin covering that was
extremely lightweight. The challenge was the
gluing process and the prospects of weathering.
83
Merrill: We went along and problems were solved and as
we proceded, everything was coming together.
We would adjust the design as needed to make
up for lost time as that occurred. Three days
before Christmas in 1995, we learned that the
wood products were now being manufactured
and that the steel connectors for the wood pieces
were on a ship which had just arrived in the San
Francisco harbor. Everything was ongoing. The
connectors had been manufactured by a German
company. Our drawings were coming along. And
then, about two hours later, we got another call.
The project had been stopped ... cancelled.
We still don't know exactly why that happened.
We were heartbroken. We loved the exercise.
We learned from it. It will come back and
be helpful in other projects.
the architect's dream house - the house above the bug line
87
88
Merrill: In the 20th century, the house has been a
major vehicle for architectural research. We
have come more and more to appreciate this
as we have become involved with residential
projects. Occasionally we have the opportunity
to continue this research in unbuilt projects.
One example is something we called the
bug house.
We had a lot of fun with this. We were asked by
the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Cincinnati
to participate in the design of a fantastic house,
an architect's dream house. Being from the South
and fighting insects all the time, we imagined a
kind of line ...
Mack: You imagined it, I didn't imagine it...
Merrill: Above which a bug couldn't fly.
' •
0
0
•
•
• • •
•
90
The lower part of the bug house is all screened in.
The screened area is a place of occupation. As
you move up the house, this imaginary house, you
climb up higher, higher, above the bug line to the
sky and then you open the house out entirely and
take in the wind and the rain and the sun. Your
eyes see right through the center section, wh ich
has to do with the horizon line.
92
At the horizon line, we placed a poem on the wall.
It talked about the bug house, and the bugs,
and the screen, and the post-industrial era, and
other things. In the exhibit you saw through
the object against that horizon, but in the
conceptualized reality of it, you had to get a
helicopter to fly up to it.
94
But what really shocked us was how
anthropomorphic it had become, how sexy
it was. It had these little pointy toes that stuck
out at you and a skirt you could see through.
We didn't know we were headed in that
direction when we started.
1----..--
----- 0 -=- ~ I 0 ~
96
Mack: Right. The bug line was somewhere way up there.
0
64 wakefield
100
Mack: This is Merrill 's house in Atlanta. I call it her
house because she made me do it. When we
bought the house it looked like a 'Monopoly'
block house. Through the years we messed with
it, turning a perfectly usable two bedroom house
into a house with no bedrooms. A tree fell on it
and mercifully killed it. All the neighbors were
out front thinking, "Oh good ... maybe they'll
move out now." You could see them walking
away with this horrified look on their faces
thinking "Oh, no .. . they might actually rebuild
and do something worse." And that's what we did.
0
~
~ )
~ ~
102
103
This is where we live. Actually, we have loved
being here this last year. It's totally irrational
space programmatically. There's no real use for
any of the spaces. We've tried to conceive of a
way to live in it where you could move the beds
and move the tables and eat anywhere, and
we've been pretty successful with that, except
for the bed. Merrill calls it the 'healthy house'
because you have to work to use it. The bed is
upstairs and the bathroom is downstairs. The
pool is upstairs by the bed. It's really light
and quite magical when you get upstairs.
What happens, and of course we predicted
this, is all kinds of reflections; you can't figure
out if you're inside or outside. You just don't
know. It's amazing how many people have
come upstairs in this house and said "Oh! You
have a pool in your house," and they're standing
outside when they're saying it.
106
Merrill never has asked for much of anything.
She doesn't seem to need anything. For some
reason - I can't imagine why - she wanted a
swimming pool. There's a swimming pool that is
three times the size of this room, I'm not kidding,
right across the street from us, but she wanted a
lap pool in her house. Where do you put a lap
pool in a house that is right on the street?
It's just thirty feet from the sidewalk. She
wanted to have sunlight from the south so you
end up with a house with a lap pool as the front
elevation. But you can't put it on the ground,
because there's a zoning regulation against
that, so it ended up in the air. It seemed like
the natural thing to do.
The reflections do a weird thing. It looks like you
can see right through concrete, and then, the
pool moves over to here. At nighttime it is really
wonderful. I had never realized how many times
the color of the sky changes at night and the way
the moon comes and goes. It comes and goes the
same as the sun comes and goes, but different.
You learn about this stuff. I should have learned
in elementary school, but.. .
109
the office
This book is published on the occasion of the 1999
Charles and Ray Eames Lecture given by Mack Scogin
and Merrill Elam. Together with Lloyd Bray, Mack and
Merrill are principals of Scogin , Elam and Bray
Architects. The work presented here is a result of their
collaboration, which seeks to take advantage of the
particular strengths of each of the principals.
1992 - present
Mack Scogin
Merrill Elam
Lloyd Bray
Christopher Agosta
Jeff Atwood
Brian Bell
Kevin Cannon
Susan Desko
Juan Du
Denise Dumais
Ned Frazer
Tim Harrison
Martha Henderson-Bennett
Dustin Linblad
Criss Mills
Beth Morris
Angela Pearce
Allison Reeves
Leigh Saye
Carlos Tardio
Cecilia Tham
Barnum Tiller
Abby Turin
Pam Wood
Kathy Wright
David Yocum
Ill
Interns:
Ellen Brunner
Dino Constantino
Ingrid Dannecker
George Delacova
Kathryn Hackney
Charlotte Henderson
Bret Horton
Stephanie Ingram
Jason King
Silas Lavenmonn
Lorance Lo
David McManus, Jr.
Eloise Paul
Jesse Plaster
Courtney Quinlavin
Kimball Robinson
Penn Rudderman
Alexandra Seebold
Julian Swann
Jason Toth
Ronald Wolfe
11 2
acknowledgments
We would like to thank Iierman Miller, Inc. tor thicr
continued and generous support of the Charles and Ray
!:.ames Lecture Series. The opportunity to publish the
content of the lectures, making them availible to a broader
audience, is also made possible by Herman Miller's
enthusiastic involvement. This collaboration is very
important to the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture
and Urban Planning. The lectures and publications
are an opportun ity to celebrate this unique relationship.
The work of Scogin Elam and Bray makes possible
the belief that architecture can be a vital cultural force.
The opportunity to participate in converstion with Mack
and Merrill about thier work makes this belief more real.
We are indebted to the two of them, but also to the
collaborators in their office. Thanks to Angela
Pearce for her patient assistance.
All of the photographs are by Timothy Hursley except those
on pages 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 15, 20, 23, 25, 35, 36, 37, 38,
40, 44, 45, 54 (top), 58, 60, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 87, 88,
90, 92 , 94, 96, 108, as well as the cover. These photos
are courtesy of Scogin Elam and Bray Architects.
Special thanks to Christian Unverzagt for his wisdom and
kind assistance in assembling the book at press time.
Mack: The things here are products of fantastic clients,
not with great budgets, but with great expectations
and a lot of energy and a lot of trust. More impor
tantly, a great deal of curiosity about the power of
architecture and the ability of architects to, through
their medium, somehow touch their spirit and their
dreams and fantasies. They talk about those things.
These are not things that we are very comfortable
talking about, but what we've learned is that great
clients are comfortable with talking about those
things and they do believe that architecture can
do that. We have been fortunate to have wonderful
clients over the years, and we have been fortunate
to have an amazing group of young people working
with us through the years that have believed in the
principle that architecture can change lives and
can make things that are of great value and fun,
and can be fun and can actually be built with
care and craftsmanship. It has been a fantastic
adventure for uil?iind we are not sure where it all
goes from here, but I guess we'll see. Thank you
once ·ilgain; thank you for your patience and
thank you for coming.
isbn 1-891197-10-X published by the university of michigan a. alfred taubman college of archtiecture + urban planning in collaboration with Herman Miller, Inc.
----------
