Title: Turpin Residence
Location of Proejct: Tybee Island, Georgia
Project Completion Date: March 15, 2020
Firm Name: Daniel E. Snyder Architect, P.C.

Short Description: With roots in 19th century, coastal, Southern vernacular architecture, this house is grounded in the past, yet incomplete. Walls remain unfinished. It anticipates the future. On a barrier island in an ever more active hurricane zone, it concedes to the fact that it too will be ruin. A perhaps gentler expression than the typical assertively finished house, it asks, “where exactly does a building begin or end?”

Architect's Statement: This house is for a husband and wife, a commercial architect and wellness coach, respectively. They have two grown children with families who visit for periods of time. When we began, our clients provided invaluable information. She provided a collage. In the center was this statement: “Time stands still here. It’s a place where children can be children for as long as they want.” As she imagines her home, she offers conceptions of “place” and “children” that transcend time.

He provided his architecture graduate school thesis. This quote captures its primary theme: “Between origin and ruin there is a constant building evolving. Where exactly does a building begin or end?” He interrogates the existential nature of “building” as a contingency of time. Over an evolution between origin and ruin he asks, “where exactly does a building begin or end?”

Both understand their home in relation to time. Their choice of site reinforces their understanding. On a barrier island, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Savannah River, and tidal marshes, it is a place where time and ruin are constant reminders. Twice daily tides mark the rotation of the sun and moon. The river speaks to the often-overused metaphor for the flow of time. With the visual evidence of destruction from hurricanes past, and the threat of destruction from hurricanes coming, the site presents time and ruin, not as dry abstractions, but as vivid and constant reminders of our own mortality, and consequently of our own lives. Strongly believing that our primary challenge is to provide a home that speaks to the clients’ hearts, we started with this play of place and time. Like his understanding, we proposed an architecture of indeterminate beginning and end. The building evolves, and it appears to evolve. Like hers, this building of indeterminate end, suggests a place where children can be children for as long as they want.

Consequently, the home presents an array of “finish” from completion to incompletion. Some exterior walls are clad in shingled Hardie panels and some in clapboard siding. Both are layers thick. They are emphatically finished – complete. Some walls are clad with exposed plywood sheathing with battens covering the joints. Normally covered with another finish, the stained sheathing straddles some indeterminate threshold between completion and incompletion. And some are nothing more than raw structural framing. They are incomplete. The same applies on the interior where painted gypsum board covers the completed walls, stained plywood sheathing the complete/incomplete walls, and raw structural framing with no cladding whatsoever, the incomplete walls. The main stair illustrates all three conditions. On the ground floor it is just exposed framing. Ascending, one experiences the evolution of construction from framing to sheathing to "finished" cladding. Yet with the exposed structure at the skylight, even there it remains incomplete. The expression continues to the interior trim. Often the last and most “finished” material to be applied, here, there is little. At the typical door casing the gypsum board pulls away to reveal the “unfinished” rough framing jack. At the base, it pulls away to reveal the sill plate. Shoe mold hides the joint with the floor.

Designed for the evolution of time, the house also accommodates aging in place. A wheelchair accessible path is routed to selected rooms, a future elevator has been located and wired, and framing arranged for ease of its installation.

The house is also designed to be in greater harmony with nature over time. Large portions of the site are to return to their natural state. Augmented with native plants, they are xeriscape designed. The limited areas of controlled vegetation are three raised beds. The remaining areas of human control are either gravel or pine straw. There is no sod. Except for the small area of concrete paving of the carport, all the ground cover, to include under roof, is permeable.

Programmatically the house is laid out as two inhabitable volumes: the owners’ living quarters and another containing guest suites. Utilities are zoned so that the owners can condition just that portion of the house where they live on a day-to-day basis. As such, they inhabit a small efficient house (1,390 sq. ft.), dramatically reducing their carbon footprint. Separating the two volumes is the porch. Utilizing the time honored Southern vernacular arrangement of the dogtrot, it maximizes the Venturi Effect so that breezes are felt on the calmest of days. Deep overhangs protect the large window areas on the south façade. A south facing roof is designed to accommodate future solar panels that can exceed the energy requirements of the entire house.

Something like a fish shack or a dock house, this home eschews the finished unchanging house in favor of an unfinished dynamic home. Somewhere between origin and ruin, it connects with its natural environment. It concedes to time.