Blackwell Competes in Design of Cottages at Fallingwater

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – It’s a tall order, to design cottages on the site of Fallingwater, the famous home designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

But architect Marlon Blackwell is up for the challenge.

Fallingwater is downhill and not visible from the mountaintop meadow site planned for the cottages, which will be used for education programs. Rather than try to compete with or emulate Fallingwater, Blackwell’s firm chose to rely on its own basic design principles.

“I think the key to how we approached this was not to try to make overt comparisons to it, but really just try to do what we do best, which is respond to ideas about place and material and think about how something is used,” Blackwell said. “That’s how we approached it, rather than trying to make Wright the reference for everything, but nonetheless to be inspired by his principles.”

Blackwell’s Fayetteville firm was one of six architectural firms chosen to submit a design for the juried Architectural Design Competition of Ideas. Blackwell is a professor and head of the architecture department in the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas.

In 1991, members of the American Institute of Architects voted Fallingwater “the best all-time work of American architecture.” It was built in 1936-38 for Edgar Kaufmann, a Pittsburgh department store owner, and used as a retreat for his family. The home, located near Mill Run, Pa., southeast of Pittsburgh, was entrusted to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1963. The site for the proposed six cottages is north of Fallingwater on the Bear Run Nature Reserve.

Fallingwater officials intend to add these cottages to expand the currently limited housing capacity for on-site residency programs held each year for teachers and high school, college and graduate students. After securing funds for the first prototype, the organization solicited architects to propose designs that would be energy efficient, site sensitive, low maintenance and LEED-certified Platinum, the highest rating.

Blackwell and Jonathan Boelkins, a project manager and designer in his firm, arrived at the design concept for the six proposed cottages during a February visit to the site at Fallingwater. They contemplated how to position six separate buildings on the site, and considered putting them at the boundary of the forest and the field, as is the Kirkpatrick House, an old farmhouse where they were staying. Then, Boelkins suggested spreading them across the field, in a series, like a threshold between forest and field, and with a panoramic view of the Allegheny Mountains beyond.

They pressed their hands into the snow-covered ground, creating a pattern of indentions representing the dwellings. And they knew they had their plan.

The potential interaction and exchange of ideas between people coming to this place were more important than a secluded retreat, Blackwell said. This design imbues the place with a sense of community and also minimally disturbs the land.

Each of the six units will be an average size of 600 to 800 square feet and will be designed for use in three seasons. For the competition, firms were charged with designing one unit in detail and suggesting the location of the remaining five.

Blackwell’s was among about 30 firms invited to submit essays about their approach to design and a portfolio of relevant work. Design proposals from the six selected firms were due May 1.

In Blackwell’s plan, the cottages are embedded in the ground, not unlike the position of Fallingwater in the rock. Fallingwater is distinct in that, rather than having a view of the waterfall, it rests above it, taking advantage of the water’s calming sound and becoming part of the natural rock structure.

The contrasting concepts of water and fire also appealed to Blackwell. He likens the serial pattern of the cottages to the coke ovens used historically in Pennsylvania to turn coal into fuel for steel production. The nighttime glow from lights in the series of cottages mimics the fires burning in a row of coke ovens.

Blackwell also referenced a quote by Wright in which he described organic architecture as “buildings qualified by light, bred by native character to environment, married to the ground.”

Blackwell looked at ways to use materials of the place. The detail of one cottage shows an entryway made of Pennsylvania slate, “of the earth” as it descends into the ground, while grass continues onto the roof. Local hardwoods harvested and milled on site are used for the walls and for the screen that filters light from a skylight. The southern wall made from stacked cordwood protects from the harsh sun, while the northern wall of glass welcomes in sunlight.

To control intrusion from the sun setting over the Allegheny Mountains, the roofline of a west-facing porch slopes down toward the elongated porch floor. Each cottage has a fireplace inside and a fire pit on the porch, and their residents share a nearby community fire pit. The cottages are connected to the same geothermal system, operated by one mechanical room.

“The notion is to present that six are better than one, that together they make an architectural construct that acts as a visual and physical threshold between the field and reforestation efforts,” Blackwell said.

Design submissions from Blackwell and the other five selected firms will be exhibited June 12 through Aug. 29 at the Heinz Architectural Center, part of the Carnegie Museum of Art, in Pittsburgh. The two other United States firms selected are Wendell Burnette Architects, Phoenix, Ariz.; and Olson Kundig Architects, Seattle, Wash. The three Canadian firms selected are MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Patkau Architects, Vancouver, British Columbia; and Saucier and Perrotte Architectes, Montreal, Quebec.

Wendell Burnette was the visiting John G. Williams Distinguished Professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture in fall 2009, and Tom Kundig will be the visiting John G. Williams Distinguished Professor in fall 2010.

A jury of architects, Fallingwater Advisory Committee members and museum professionals will review the submissions and make recommendations to Fallingwater officials by mid-May. The jury will select a winning entry, as well as second- and third-place entries.

The estimated project budget is $1 million. Construction of the first two cottages should begin this fall.