6130 ldc - whitefish bay, wisconsin
6130 LDC is a small architectural intervention in the center of an historic mansion on Milwaukee’s East Side, an impressive structure built in 1893 that had fallen into disrepair. Purchased in 2006 by a young family of five, the existing house offered an abundance of space but had one major flaw: a gratuitous, disjointed antechamber with convoluted winding stairs in the center of the mansion, a physical bottleneck that divided the building in two separate parts and obstructed the circulatory and visual flow between them. This project illustrates how a small but precise architectural incision can re-energize the tired bones of a dysfunctional historic building in an effort to accommodate changing preferences and use patterns.
The removal and gutting of the existing space created a strategic void, making room for the surgical insertion of an architectonic device that spatially redefines the entry, reorganizes the circulation, and opens up interior sightlines.
Deliberately avoiding historicist mimicry, the carefully designed joinery and precise assembly instead echoes and celebrates the very ethos of craft that typifies the architecture of the original mansion. The entire installation is based on a simple kit of milled 1x and 2x wood boards, which, depending on their orientation, width, and combination, serve as structural framing, screening fins, risers, treads, and trim, respectively.
Like a suture, the tightly spaced vertical fins delicately pierce through the three levels of the house and literally stitch them together; they cradle new stairs and transform into the cadenced ceiling of the new foyer before folding down as a screen wall to articulate the boundaries between foyer and adjacent living spaces. On the upper level, translucent glass suspended between the wood fins give the adjacent master suite a level of privacy while allowing light to filter into the foyer. As the fins pierce through the floor and extend into the lower level, they become the framework for a translucent wall that provides enigmatic glimpses from the stairs into the basement gym.