DOG-TROT - private home design

Architectural Review, The, Dec, 1999

An attempt to reinterpret traditional forms is much more sophisticated than it seems at first sight.

Stephen Atkinson says that he tried to 'suppress the apparent hand of the architect and reinterpret traditional forms for a deeper connection to the Southern culture and landscape'. He took inspiration not just from traditional house types, but from the trailer culture of the South. Even so, we were a little worried by the literalness of the interpretation.

The plan is based on the traditional dog-trot -- a special form developed in the South in which a central penetration between two enclosed spaces acts as a focus for breezes, so convecting out stuffy air from the rooms on either side. But the dogtrot is more than just a gap. It is a place for family life almost in the open; it is semi-public and private.

Clients were a recently retired couple who wanted a weekend place, but had to carefully consider the cost. Hence a very simple structure: timber frame with galvanized steel corrugated cladding over both roof and walls, traditional cheap agricultural building materials. The clients built it themselves, with a little help from friends, so details had to be simple. The jury particularly liked the economy of means, the strange transformation from old form to new, and the resonance with place, which Billie Tsien explained to us, is more than just copying tradition but a creative reinterpretation of life-style and response to the hot and humid climate.

ARCHITECT

STEPHEN ATKINSON