SAUCIER + PERROTTE ARCHITECTESNARRATIVE FOR FALLINGWATER ON-SITE EDUCATIONAL LODGING PROJECT 2010
(COMPETITION FINALIST)First Visit to Fallingwater My first visit to Fallingwater was during the winter many years ago at a moment when frozen nature and the graceful, untamed landscape permeated the house, giving it an unexpected and surreal dimension. This impression ran somewhat against the images we have become accustomed to seeing of the house, ensconced in the lush vegetation of the warmer months, appearing to melt into the surrounding landscape and creek below — becoming one with its site.   On that initial visit, the house seemed frozen in time. The rhododendrons lay dormant, and the waterfall was partially iced-over. The interior possessed a beautifully tranquil quality; the furniture, draped in white cloth, rendered the space more luminous in its stillness than I would have anticipated. The house was at rest. I recall that the approach to the house was as important as the architecture itself. This is when I discovered the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright. That visit lives on in my memory as a black and white image (similar to the photographs I took at the time), something that is at once a vague impression and simultaneously something extremely vivid.

February 2010While that first visit was extremely special, my visit earlier this year was an extraordinary experience. We drove to Bear Run from Washington in blizzard conditions. The path leading to the house wove through the white landscape. On this trip, despite the winter conditions, I perceived the house and its connection to the landscape as less frozen and more in flux. This was due in part to the fact that, having been invited to dinner, we had the unique occasion to actually inhabit — to live in — the house for a moment in time in a manner that the Kaufmann family once did. Presented with this wonderful opportunity, the house ceased being a museum, and we began to perceive the landscape in an altogether different way because of the architecture, that is, by inhabiting it as occupants.   This experience became to me a real “initiation aux lieux,” a true encounter with the land as intended by Mr. Wright.
Encountering the Project Site for the First TimeThe next morning, the sky was a sublime shade of gray, and the snow was the colour of shadows.   The formation of the forest, the landscape of the trees, was off-colour — ranging from deep gray to intense black — due to the absence of sun. Lines of distant trees merged together, appearing as a thick horizon line. Every tree, every building, and artifact stood in stark contrast to the white and gray landscape. Visiting the site for the future cottages, a sloped landscape sheltered by the forest on both sides, we immediately perceived the immense sky above and the genuine sense of openness of the place, along with the dark horizon carved by the lines of trees through the backdrop of the grays of sky and snow. The humidity in the air was just as visible as it was palpable. Not only could the site be read as a stratified topography, but the layers of landscape, sky and of air came together in a greater superimposition of strata, all in relation to the dark, treed horizon.
I wanted to inhabit this horizon.
The site was extremely pristine. I began to feel that if architecture could somehow become part of this dense, layered horizon, it would artfully and successfully contribute in a meaningful way to the already exquisite landscape, rather than tarnishing its beauty.   In addition to providing visitors a comfortable place to lodge — one conducive to learning — the architecture could enable its inhabitants to add to their understanding of the place and heighten their awareness of the landscape.
I began to envision an undulating path leading to each cottage, the forest extending, not in a straight line, but as a softened, fluid edge toward each pavilion, creating slight alcoves of privacy for each one.
But how should this place be inhabited? How could groups of people, be they students or researchers, live in this space without losing the peaceful feeling of solitude experienced when face to face with the perspective of the sloping landscape and the thick, layered horizon?
These questions are particularly pertinent considering the context in which we live. Over time, we have lost the notion of architecture as shelter in large part because of technology and over-consumption. Our dwellings are no longer for survival but are increasingly designed for the purpose of show.
Technology is by no means a detrimental thing. When employed conscientiously, it becomes an instrument that can bring us closer to an understanding of the land by enabling architecture to return to fundamental notions of integrating with its site and context. This can be done through site analysis, employment of sustainable principles, etc. which, while being done today through more complex and digital methods, allow us to return in a sense to classical ideals of architecture: meaningfully relating to the earth, harmonizing with nature, and creating a better world. The need to reflect on these ideas takes on added importance today; in becoming more attuned to our planet, more cognizant of the fragility of the environment and the threats humans have been posing to themselves and the earth, it can be said that we are returning to a mode of survival.
The cottages for the Fallingwater educational project propose an approach whose design synthesizes these notions of nature and its relationship with human beings, while simultaneously allowing visitors to become fully immersed in the breathtaking landscape through precise, meaningful architectural intervention.
The lodging design is intended to exemplify a simplicity in our contact with nature. Each cottage is conceived as a mediator between its inhabitants and the environment. A spirit of exchange has been particularly fostered through the design. The pavilions provide a convivial atmosphere for their occupants as they reside in direct contact with the landscape. While ensuring for privacy for inhabitants, they also convey a sense of community.
Each cottage is composed of a thick, mineral-like object raised a few meters from the ground to frame a space to be inhabited. All living quarters are designed in this space under the sheltered protection of the roof. From some points of view, the roof above appears to float, disengaged from the landscape, but is anchored to the sloping topography on its east side. In this way, the roof volume becomes part of the continuity of the horizon even as it emerges laterally from the sloped topos. The roof ensures maximum privacy for each house, yet preserves the vital openness to the landscape, which we perceive as flowing unencumbered into the living space. From higher ground, the pavilions are perceived as mineral objects in the topography, disappearing and reappearing as one moves through the terrain. In winter months, the cottages become abstract objects inhabiting the horizon, punctuating the landscape against the white and gray tones of earth and sky. The private rooms are hidden from public view, while the roof configuration allows abundant natural light to enter the public zones, such as the living room, throughout the day. Protecting against the harsh south sun, the roof also admits the warm light from the west at the end of the day. A large mesh partition toward the landscape allows each cottage to breathe. The operable skylight located near the center of each cottage allows more daylight to penetrate the interior spaces and functions as a natural ventilator with the other openings, permitting the circulation of air throughout the pavilion.
The surface of the ground of each cottage is polished concrete, which extends into the landscape to become the terrace. The exterior cladding is composed of dark wood surfaces, evoking the unique mineral quality of each pavilion. The large glazed exterior surfaces are complemented by the white wood interior. The junction of roof and landscape is primarily concrete in texture. Using this limited palette of materials, the project takes on a textural and formal language that does not reference a particular technology nor any other architecture with which we have grown familiar. The cottages are indeed sculptural objects in the landscape.
Our scheme develops an 800 square foot plan of the cottages. Each contains a mezzanine under the skylight, a more private space that can be made open air when needed. The mezzanine is envisioned as a container of knowledge, a calm place to read, study, and meditate. The bedroom spaces are composed of removable acoustical walls, so that they can take on variable arrangements to allow for multiple uses (two bedrooms, one large space, etc.).   The roof is supported by a concrete wall on the side of the sloped landscape, as well as by the fireplace at the center and slender columns at the periphery. Inspired by sustainable principles and LEED design criteria, each cottage contains all the necessary technical equipment in its roof structure.
Each cottage is envisioned as personal place to inhabit the continuous, dense horizon, a space between the strata of sky and landscape. The project serves to ground us for a time, to renew our understanding and experience of the land and of natural phenomena. Each is a shelter, a place to live and work, where all the senses are engaged and inhabitants are at harmony with the landscape in which they are immersed. The new cottages are the means by which to bring visitors, students, and researchers into contact with the natural splendor of Bear Run.
When Mr. Wright envisioned the strata of the Kaufmann House, he added to the sublime quality of its site, giving the world a new sense of architecture’s relationship with nature. The design for the cottages stresses this responsibility of architecture to integrate exquisitely into its environment, using art as a link between humankind and nature, adding to the beauty of the land that once inspired Frank Lloyd Wright. -- Gilles Saucier, April 2010