Architect Randy Brown can be credited with only attracting cutting-edge design to Nebraska, having discovered beneath West Coast architects such as the late Frank Israel and returning into the Cornhusker State with know-how along with a passion for contemporary architecture. Brown’s own house and studio on a hilly 10-acre great deal in Omaha is a striking manifestation of his design. A dynamic addition in Corten steel is linked to a current 1950s house by a translucent bridge. It is an extremely personal and experiment layout with an intriguing background. Read on for a tour of the Laboratory House.
Randy Brown
Randy and his wife Kim purchased the tiny ranch-style house and big great deal in 1999. “We said we’d take our time,” he states. And they did, moving to the expanded house eight years later. This near decade time frame can be credited to treating the house as a laboratory — hence LABoratory House — for researching design and construction. Randy and his employees would restore and draw components since they built themselves. A consistent back-and-forth between drawing and building slowly refined the house with time. Eventually Randy hired some of his pupils to help out, a process that worked really well but still required he”along with the fulltime guy working manual labor for two intense years”
Randy Brown
Brown’s addition is a three-story bit, where the top two floors cantilever past the angled footprint of the bottom degree. Trace the luminous bridge (what Brown call”that the skywalk”) beyond the ideal edge of this photo, and that is where the existing house sits. But both are also attached on the bottom level using a hallway, offering a different route of connection and linking the accession to the hilly land it sits upon. The skywalk hints in the playfulness that is found inside.
Randy Brown
The skywalk is also a powerful symbol of link between the two realms of Brown’s life: work and home. Given that the house is a laboratory for layout experiments, it’s also a full size portfolio piece for impressing potential customers. To move from a renovated ranch house (the entrance straddling new and old is pictured) to a Corten-clad anomaly is to go through the architect’s abilities first hand.
Randy Brown
In the entrance, one has the option of traversing the stair into the bridge or descending below to the hallway. The former brings one to the public areas of the house, whereas the latter heads involving the toy area and the children’s bedrooms.
Randy Brown
The bridge seems to insert itself to the addition with some force, as if the two-story volume is crumpled by it.
Randy Brown
Inside the rust provides way to drywall — stained white wood. The latter is articulated with 7,000 (! ) ) 3/4×1-1/2″ slats –“one buck a slat,” according to Brown, who additionally asserts,”Drywall walls are boring!” And they’ve nothing on the stunning view at the end of this big double-height living space, what one sees rounding the corner from the end of the bridge. The ribbon window in the floor is a unique touch, one which highlights the trees down the mountain.
Randy Brown
But the white drywall walls are also the perfect foil for the million of timber slats; they create a background for the numerous screens that provide the house what Brown wanted, some”transparency and lightness.” The broad drywall extends into the ceiling, which makes the exposed timber joists as powerful as the various timber slats.
Randy Brown
Ripe for experimentation would be the bedrooms and play areas for the kids. These screens in the boys’ bedroom appear to eat up a fantastic chunk of the thousands of timber slats, and they surely reinforce the house as a laboratory. They might appear frivolous, however I liken their existence to pre-litigation playgrounds; the purpose of the screens might be ambiguous, however they’re a spur for the creativity and a welcome respite from the standard.
Randy Brown
Elsewhere the experiments are somewhat more subdued, such as the guest suite, which rounds out this tour. A hole in drywall is carved to become a cavity of light and reveal what looks like some wires. Whatever the situation might be, I’m drawn to the small window in bottom right that seems to frame the base of a small tree which angles as it climbs.
Randy Brown
Panning left we see the rest of the guest suite: the tub and sink (behind the latter is the toilet alcove). In this house of Corten steel, white drywall, and thousands of timber slats, there’s still room for some marble. I particularly like how the mirror confronts the view out the full-height window, making a nice natural background when brushing one’s teeth.
Randy Brown
One final look at the house — from the sink region throughout the shower which shares a wall with the bathtub’ reveals the sophistication that occurs even in a few of the very straightforward spaces in Brown’s addition. Huge expanses of glass alternative with small slot windows; materials overlap and erode to reveal structure; and perspectives cross numerous borders. Ultimately, like any house the perspectives are an significant part the house. They are a means of orienting the dynamic strategy, be it in the double-height living space or the guest suite in the other side of the house.
Yes, Brown’s house is a laboratory that brings its fair share of architectural admirers — he admits contemporary peers such as Larry Scarpa, Marlon Blackwell, and Merrill Elam have trekked to observe the house — but it’s still an environment which works for him and his loved ones. It provides shelter and a means of interacting with nature, but it’s also lively and embraces delight and surprise, some components missing from much contemporary residential buildings.
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