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Bowstring Truss House by Works Partnership Architecture

By Jessica Mejias

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Bowstring Truss House is a private home located in Portland, Oregon, USA.

It was designed by Works Partnership Architecture in 2013.

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Bowstring Truss House by Works Partnership Architecture:

“This private residence and studio was adapted from a 5,000 sf former warehouse and awning fabricator’s shop. The space is clear-spanned by a series of four bowstring trusses and exposed roof framing. The intent of the design was to maintain the vast trussed ceiling and the open floor plane, while inserting a flexible residential program where the clients could live and work. The result manages both scales simultaneously: a sense of the expanse of the entire structure as well as scaled discrete living areas.

A strategy was adopted for inserting the program into the shell in a loose arrangement of programmed “boxes“. We felt that the five trusses provided more than enough meter for the space. In order to allow a sense of the “whole”, a pixelated subset of elements could create a broad spectrum of both public and private spaces while never competing with the recognizable order of the roof.

A new environment was created; the resident couple occupy a space among the elements that support the home and studio, interior and exterior, a simplified terrain between earth and sky. A free pattern of new skylights create a constellation of light and discrete pools of sun. At the center of the house, the groundscape and the roofscape align to form a central courtyard—a vitrine of nature, and a vessel to capture the elusive Pacific Northwest light. The program begins as a whole then breaks apart; elements find their place like tectonic plates settling into stationary position. The gaps between the masses become discreet spaces residing in the absence. Rather than a cellular plan of defined function, the residents live among the elements.”

Photos by: Joshua Jay Elliott

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About Jessica Mejias

Jessica is a resident of Madrid, where she often can be found stalking the halls of the Prado Museum, hoping to catch a glimpse of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. An Art History graduate, she enjoys admiring art and architecture, reading, and keeping young by playing video games. Learn more about HomeDSGN's Editorial Process.

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