Precedent Study: Kings Road House

Precedent Study – Rudolph Schindler’s Kings Road House
Team members – Michelle Costamagna and Melissa McMeekin

Thesis – Spatial Relationships
When designing the Kings Road House, Schindler used inspiration from a camping trip in Yosemite to create an ideal home for the California climate. His innovative use of skin and frame helped him achieve this blending of indoor and outdoor spaces.

Human Scale
Schindler created a modular system based on American timber that driven the humane scale of the design.

Relationship to Frank Lloyd Wright
Before designing this house, Schindler had worked for Frank Lloyd Wright for around four years, in which he received a first-hand experience of Prairie-Style Architecture. Therefore Schindler’s implementation of the floating roof can be compared to the cantilever roof of the Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie Residence.

Design Intentions
By using concrete as a backbone to the spatial organization and the implementation of a transparent hard skin (wood and glass framing), he intended the experience of the interior spaces to extend out to the foliages of the exterior.