CLAY SUTURES : The Flats

Louisville, KY, United States

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CLAY SUTURES : The Flats

Louisville, KY, United States

Firm

form-ula

YEAR

2011

Pinches in the landscape. That is where the point of departure lies for the 3 building 12 unit apt complex in Louisville KY. The project uses what we understand to be a fundamental icon of domesticity, the 5 line network that makes up the pitched roof facade. It is in this facade that the idea of the green band that is caped or anchored by brick creating a symbiotic relationship that allows for a climatic balancing of the summer and winter months. We are able to achieve this through a north south orientation of the buildings in conjunction with an extruded brick pattern and a lattice of KY crawler ivy that wraps the building from east to west. By offsetting the brick from the facade it creates a manifold effect in the summer months allowing for protection from the high summer sun and creating an increased surface area that when coupled with the prevailing crosswinds will pull the hot air out of the building using the heat sink effect. In the winter, the lower sun angle is then trapped in this thickened skin, storing and releasing energy into the building throughout the day. The final participant is the ivy that cloak’s the building in an insulating thermal blanket in the summer months and when it recedes in the winter months it exposes the surfaces allowing them to absorb the suns heat. In this case, the formula is using cultural familiarities within a housing typology to think about the potential future of housing systems.