Lake House

Austin, Texas
2005
Gwathmey Siegel Associates Architects

This ensemble of buildings is a retreat which has three buildings on a lakefront property. The three structures include a Lake House, Boathouse and Riding Complex. Of the three I am illustrating one, the Lake House.

The Lake house is a cylinder turned on its side with a truncated lake side facade. Entrance is through the rounded side and penetrations on this side are punches. The materials cladding the curved part is Rheinzinc, a zinc alloy with is traditionally used for roofing.

The intense heat and humidity along with the highly controlled interior temperatures puts a tremendous demand on the roof/walls performance. Mitigating mold was a very big problem in resolving this envelope. The two floor plans and additional support buildings are relatively simple and add to the buildings straightforward shape.

The first floor its divided into four quadrants, a kitchen dining area, living room, support spaces and the central hall play area. A stair rises at the curve face adjacent to entry and is expressed as a planar cutout in the cylindrical shape.

Similarly the second floor has support services such as bathrooms on the curved side and bedrooms and work spaces toward the lake. The second floor also has the balcony/terrace accessible from the work area in the central hall. The two outbuildings are the garage and the exercise sauna spaces. The cylindrical shaped place also has access to an upper deck via a circular staircase at the connector of the two spaces.

In keeping with the vernacular a curved zinc roof covers the dock and is adjacent to a bar type structure for support spaces.