Federico Monsalve (FM): Tell us about the neighbourhood: If and how did the location (its history, urban fabric and planned changes due to the BeltLine) influence some of your choices?

Jennifer Bonner (JB): Haus Gables is located in the Old Fourth Ward neighbourhood of Atlanta, and the property directly adjoins the BeltLine, as a public entry path is located a couple hundred feet away. The lot is extremely narrow, measuring 24 feet (7.3 metres) in width with 3-food (1-metre) setbacks on both sides of the property line. That’s 18 feet (5.5 metres) of total construction width. Considered an urban infill project, the house promotes building in narrow, undeveloped property. After the recent construction of the Atlanta BeltLine, a public pedestrian and bicycle path encircling the city, many in-town neighborhoods have been transformed. People are walking, exercising, biking and enjoying the city – it’s really been transformational. Since first acquiring the site six years ago, it has been interesting to watch this development take place.

FM: This project looks like it could have been born from a number of vernaculars: Japanese, Scandinavian, German, French… Does “vernacular” matter? Especially while building a private residence?

JB: I like that you cannot locate any of these countries’ vernaculars within the house. While I was designing the house, I was fully aware that an all-wood interior might read as Scandinavian, while the all-white exterior and minimal detailing might read as Japanese, but I was adamant not to design a “Swiss” house – Haus Gables is located in Atlanta, the Dirty South!

Because the initial research for the design of the house began with the ordinary roof forms, the idea was to challenge one’s reading of the house and of the iconic gable pitch. From the curbside elevation, the house is asymmetrical as a gable is rotated and clipped. Also, the pitches for the gable roofs are 14/12 (18.4º), 17/12 (54.8º) and 19/12 (57.7º): a collection of exaggerated, steeper pitches than those found in industry standards. Ultimately, the house critiques the American single-family home both through image and construction technique.

FM: Tell me about your Chicago Biennale 2017 project. Was that a precursor for the roofline of this house?

JB: In 2014, I made a 10,000ft² (929 m²) solo exhibition in Atlanta, titled Domestic Hats. This body of work, a 3D sampling of 50 houses in the city of Atlanta that cut through dozens of  neighborhoods, was the original research that spun into a collection of 16 large roof projects. This research and design was the origin of the house and the idea to propose the “roofplan” as an alternate way of organizing space. The model included in the 2017 Chicago Biennale is a development of Haus Gables, where I was testing out both the roof geometry and interior faux finishes at the scale of 1:12 – which I affectionately call “The Dollhaus” model. The artistic curators of the Biennale, Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, asked to exhibit four photographs of the Dollhaus model taken by food photographer Adam DeTour. The photographer used coloured gel photography to further enhance colour, space and materiality.

FM: Were there any eureka moments during the design phase? Any pieces of the puzzle that made the rest of the design easier?

JB: During the costing phase of the project, several Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) manufacturers looked at the digital model of the house and assumed that it was inefficient based upon a first glance at the geometry of the house. Not satisfied with the process, we decided to take things into our own hands by nesting each panel into a series of larger, blank CLT panels to demonstrate that there was a very small amount of off-cuts and we could efficiently nest the panels to streamline the manufacturing process. Up until this “ah-ha moment” there were many skeptics around the project. AKT II (London-based engineers) suggested that we cost it out with KLH, an Austrian CLT provider. KLH US/Austria proved to be an excellent partner who believed in the project from the very beginning and won the bid. The collaboration was extremely gratifying as their expertise in CNC flip milling and manufacturing of CLT product is phenomenal.

FM: Why CLT?

JB: Early on in the design process, I worked with structural engineer, mentor and colleague, Hanif Kara (of AKT II), on the schematic design of Haus Gables. Hanif proposed CLT as the structural solution because I was interested in exposing the geometry of the roof. Hanif supported me with expert knowledge and confidence to tackle the CLT superstructure which acts like a folded plate and allows for the combination of 3-ply (walls), 5-ply (roof) and 7-ply (floor) panels. The roof form directly affects the domestic interior.

Additionally, in my mind, CLT is an innovation that could be understood as a natural progression from traditionally framed walls made of timber; instead, lumber is glued together in alternate directions. Beyond all of the sustainable aspects (no waste product, thermal benefits, solid construction, et cetera.), CLT allows for an alternative for the US market whose primary image of the domestic interior relies on drywall.

FM: Did you get a chance to visit and/or chat to Susan Jones about her CLT home in Seattle, and what aspects of it did you find suitable for your project?

JB: Yes! After discovering that Susan Jones built the first CLT house in the US, I immediately reached out to her and told her about my plans to build a house in Atlanta. She was extremely generous and very supportive at various times throughout the project, specifically with questions that I had regarding code – Susan has pioneered an industry conversation around mass timber and code – and brainstorming how to install the panels. She suggested that I assemble a team using the person that installed her house, Terry Ducatt, who is the expert in the country. I called him and he agreed to come to Atlanta for three weeks and assemble Haus Gables. I think its super-interesting that two of the first houses to use CLT in the US were designed by two female architects experimenting with the material. I’ve never met Susan Jones in person, but I would say we are very good friends.

FM: Are there any other CLT spaces or practitioners you found inspirational during the design of this project?

JB: My architectural inspiration does not necessarily come from other CLT spaces, but from roofs found in the everyday; the banal roof forms one can see in any city. I believe the ordinary is an exciting starting point for designing with the “roof plan”.

FM: There seems to be large engineering requirements for the construction of this home. What was the most complicated and how was it solved?

JB: Yes, the project required four engineers, but not necessarily due to structural complexity, more due to the fact that we wanted to develop a strong project that utilised everyone’s expertise. AKT II provided concept design; Bensonwood, in New Hampshire, provided design development and then outsourced the mass timber calculations to Fire Tower. Lastly, PEC Structural were a firm in Atlanta who designed and coordinated the connection of the CLT box to the concrete basement box. The local structural engineer also assisted me with approvals from the city of Atlanta.

There are 87 panels in total for a 2,200ft² (204m²) house. No two panels are alike and there are dozens of different connection details. Bensonwood, the CLT installer, and MALL collaboratively worked through a construction sequence drawing set that also labelled each panel and hardware connection detail.

Before we sent the fabrication files to KLH in Austria, I checked each panel myself at least six times. There was no room for error as the 87 panels were shipped on three open-top shipping containers from Austria to the port of Savannah. If a panel was found to be incorrect on site, we had no extra materials laying around and it would have been detrimental to the installation timeline. In conclusion, I can’t say there was one particular moment that was most complicated; the entire process required meticulous coordination amongst the entire team.

FM: A 14-day build for a structure as seemingly complex as this one is quite a short time. What made this possible?

JB: Lots and lots of pre-planned organization! The design team held numerous conference calls walking through the erection sequence with countless advance trouble-shooting of on-site scenarios. Terry Ducatt, the CLT installer, made thorough plans in advance of arriving to Atlanta with his four-person team. The actual property is only 24 feet (7.3 metres) and we worked with neighbouring owners to position a 40-tonne crane to the south of the site and a staging area was secured north of the site to layout out the panels. We also coordinated the delivery of the panels from the port of Savannah, which arrived in a staged sequence on 11 “hot-shot” trailers. The panels were pre loaded in reverse order so that, when picked off the truck, the first panel would be on top of pile, ready to be installed. Terry was quick to learn things on site that would make the installation time more efficient. Again, a lot of knowledge and expertise allowed for a smooth install to take place. Although the geometry was complicated, everything fitted together fairly smoothly.

FM: What aspect of this home do you think has the most potential for longevity and for ‘disruption’?

JB: The CLT walls are exceptionally strong and provide excellent thermal properties. I feel like the house is built-to-stay, regardless of tornados or local storms. For me, the house is a proof-of-concept, a radical experiment and, hopefully, will ‘disrupt’ the way in which the industry builds residential projects in the near future.

FM: The faux detailing is quite an interesting choice. There seems to be such a fascination at the moment with “point of origin” of materials used in homes and also with the narratives attached to the finishes and furnishings. This choice of faux materials seems to go entirely against that grain.

JB: Yes! The decision to conceptualize a ‘faux finish’ alongside the strong image of the wooden CLT interior was an intentional design move. The faux finishes are both floor materials and wall materials that read similarly to wainscoting in each of the rooms. The faux finishes produce two effects: 1. Colour blocking of space and 2. Functionally covering the electrical and plumbing chases embedded in the CLT panels.

A long view through the house demonstrates how the colour block works. For example, on the first level, a grey (concrete vinyl), yellow (marble vinyl) and black (terrazzo tile) can be seen standing in the master bedroom looking through the dining room and into the kitchen at the back of the house.

FM: Is it luxury in a budget? Is it playing between perception vs reality? There has already been a mention of architectural representation in the era of social media. Can you walk me through a condensed summary of how this might have affected some of your choices here?

JB: Yes, the faux finishes were partly an idea for mixing more luxurious materials, such as ceramic and terrazzo tiles, with inexpensive materials like vinyl flooring. The project undertakes an old tradition of faux-finishing. For Southerners, there is a history of not being able to afford precious materials with a subsequent desire of “faking it”.

The interior strategy mixes both quality finishes with more inexpensive ones, which ultimately offset the image of the wood. The original section drawings for the project are collaged interior elevations without lines, but only images of materials.

I am deeply interested in the role architectural representation might have on the final building. Can architecture be a drawing? Or might the representation of an architectural model, like a dollhouse, influence final architectural photography? When inside the house, I imagine inhabitants are literally inside the dollhouse or the drawing of faux finishes.

Read more about Haus Gables here.