It’s always intriguing and enlightening to peruse the portfolios of top architects because peeling back the layers to look beyond the brick and mortar reveals the thought processes behind the design of the great works.
“The Art of Creating Houses,” the fourth book in the series that details the work of Polhemus Savery DaSilva (PSD), provides an in-depth armchair tour of 27 of the firm’s recent exceptional shingle-style houses.
Image after image, the nearly 2-inch-thick weighty volume, which mainly features the photographs of Brian Vanden Brink, peeks behind the shingles, delving into the details, from the sinuous lines of a central staircase to the star-pattern cupola illuminating a guest room, in a magnificent manner. The large-format tome also features floor plans and numerous centerfolds that create a satisfying immersive experience.
The residences PSD designs and builds, renovates and restores reference and reinterpret historical styles.
Peruse the pages of this prolific pictorial portfolio, and it’s the little things that attract and arrest the eye. At Brace Rock, it’s the partially hewn log that serves as the mantelpiece of the stone fireplace and the playful Venetian arches topping the mudroom built-ins. At Riptide, the large-scale whale’s tail sculpture in the garden gives pause as does the incised and grooved traditional/contemporary design of the fan light of the entry porch. And spend some time at Warm Welcome, which greets visitors with a shallow umbrella dome in the entry, or at Windswept, whose roof line glides like a manta ray through the sky.
One of the firm’s more playful residences is Summer Mooring, whose buttoned-down exterior gives way to whimsy in the most wonderful way. The interiors feature nautical forms and Greek Revival imagery and reference the grand salons of yachts of yesteryear.
The galley-style kitchen has bar seating around an island, the alcove above the window seat is studded with a back-lit pattern of starfish and dots (it’s also used on the endpapers of the book), and the fireplace mantel is a whale’s tail topped by a sculpture of the same.
The study is styled as a captain’s quarters. The children’s room has enough bunks for nine, – to get to bed, they climb a ship’s ladder or take the stairs to a hidden door – wall carvings of waves and tugboats and real ship’s portholes.
An introduction by Victor Deupi, PhD places the firm’s work in historical context, and an essay by John R. DaSilva, FAIA provides insight into “the secrets of good design.” (His formula: scale versus size, relating to history, indoor/outdoor connections, semi-open but defined spaces and through the lens of history.)
Although most of the projects featured in the book are new construction, the volume also showcases the firm’s expertise in seamlessly merging the old and new.
A prime example is Harbor View, a project in which PSD renovated an old cape and replaced a vintage barn with an addition that, from the front, looks like its predecessor but whose back façade is an unabashedly contemporary masterpiece of glass, steel and shingles. The project also includes a separate guest house/social pavilion that blurs the lines between the three styles.
PSD, the Cape Cod-based integrated architecture and construction firm that was established in 1996, has completed hundreds of projects; the 27 featured in “The Art of Creating Houses” leave readers asking to see more. In fact, the residences, beautiful, livable and comfortable for 21st-century living, are so inviting that readers can’t help but long to linger and spend more time within their walls.