A Place Between: Japanese and Italian Architecture Inspire This Virginia Home
(Page 3 of 4)
March/April 2003
By Robyn Griggs Lawrence
“However,” he adds, “locating suppliers for the special materials was fairly easy, and in the end the cost was not appreciably more than for conventional materials—approximately 5 percent.”
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The following are some of the choices Allison and Chris made—and a bit about how they came to make them.
STRUCTURAL INSULATED PANELS (SIPs): SIPs made from a polystyrene foam core sandwiched between sheets of oriented strand board (OSB), a plywood-like material made from waste wood chips, were used for the north, east, and west exterior walls and the roof structure. SIPs create a thermally efficient shell with excellent insulation, air filtration, and noise reduction. They reduce the amount of wood needed and increase the effective R-value of the envelope. Because they are manufactured to plan specifications, SIPs are easy to assemble. A crew of three built all the wall panels in three days.
HARDIPLANK SIDING: These fiber-cement panels were easily obtained, economical, durable, and insect-resistant. They also require little maintenance.
CERTIFIED SUSTAINABLE YIELD LUMBER: For the interior walls and the south walls, where many large window openings made SIPs impractical, Allison and Chris chose framing lumber from a local distributor who was certified to have met sustainable management practices and guidelines set by third-party sources. Yellow birch was used for the interior trim, Spanish cedar for the windows and doors.
RECLAIMED TIMBERS: Exposed heart pine columns and heavy timber beams were reclaimed from abandoned factories in New York and remilled by a small company in nearby Farmville, Virginia.
CYPRESS: Selectively sourced, though not certified, Virginia cypress emerged as the most economical yet environmentally friendly choice for the southern walls and upper portions of the east, west, and north walls, the deck surfaces, the window louvers, and the porch trellis. The environmental benefits of using a local product and the wood’s natural resistance to rotting were attributes that stood out for Allison and Chris. The wood was treated with water-based exterior stain.
PLYCEM: In a twist on the use of this fiber-cement sheathing that is typically used as a subfloor, large panels were installed in a grid on the floor and finished with concrete stain and floor wax.
In a nod to Japanese form, Allison and Chris adapted a grid pattern throughout the house, which they established using columns and trim details as well as a pattern of cementitious panels similar to tatami mats on the floor. The 2,800-square-foot rectangular space is divided into four sixteen-by-twenty-four-foot modules that are further divided into the four-by-eight-foot grid. “In the traditional Japanese house, the spaces are organized around a series of gardens in a seemingly illogical manner, the whole knitted together by an expression of a grid,” Allison explains. “We organized the spaces in a very rational, Western way—a series of spaces like beads on a necklace. It’s a very modern interpretation of that concept.