Deer Isle Main | 2017

This project was completed as part of a two week residency was an opportunity to explore a single work of architecture in situ: Edward Larrabee Barnes’ iconic Haystack Mountain School of Arts and Crafts.

During the residency, SILO developed a series of interpretive objects, meant to speculate with the “primitive” architectural vocabulary Barnes developed at Haystack. The research began by documenting as-built conditions in comparison to the original construction documents. This work revealed that despite Barnes’ overt nods to vernacular form and tectonics, he privileged an ideal geometry remaining fairly indifferent to the local environment and climate.

After gaining an understanding the building dimensions and site relationships, new combinations of building forms were explored. These architectural alternatives sought to imagine the campus if it were adapted more specifically to its site, or in scenarios that create new local alignments, adjacencies, and programmatic scenarios. To explore the forms and spaces created, objects were fabricated using the tools on site at the School, with the rough tooling meant to echo the tectonic textures of the existing architecture.