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villa hildegard |
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| The villa exists as a residence that mediates the boundary between the rural and the urban. The villa exists as a bastion, self reliant and isolated, yet facilitated by a link to the city. It rides an edge between the untamed wilderness and the controlled backdrop of urban infrastructure. The villa is linked to the District of Columbia: the capital of the free world. The result is the economic and cultural sustenance of society that permits the escapist and naturalist tendencies of the individual and the villa. The villa is a design for a single resident. The house sits on a vacant site, un-built and open natural wooded terrain at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the banks of the James River. The field is cultivated for hay to feed the livestock of nearby farms. The main living quarters of the house exist in a single double height volume studded by three elements suspended within. The living happens around the forms. The individual programs of bedroom, closet and study are isolated as the articulated necessities of existence. The forms develop as both the positive and the negative space of their compositional arrangement. The three pods represent the fundamental necessities of existence: biological necessity, storage of experience, and intellectual pursuit. The lower level is defined by a concrete perimeter wall. Lined with books, the accumulated knowledge of the inhabitant’s experience provides the insular protection from the realities of the world. The model is a scaled manifestation of the Villa.
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