Project: A Modular Rural Residence
Architects: Scalar Architecture PC
Lead Architects: Julio Salcedo-Fernandez
Team: Team – Julio Salcedo, Yutong Li, Elda Hernandez, Tomas Rodriguez Rivero
Engineers: Westchester Modular Homes
General contractor: Segallas Turnkey Housing
Interior designer: Fawn Galli Interiors and scalar Architecture, PC
Location: Sharon, Massachusetts, United States
Area: 2200 ft2 (1800 sf Interior, 400 sf Exterior)
Year: 2022
Photographs: Miguel De Guzmán & Rocío Romeo – Imagen Subliminal
Located in the Berkshires mountains and born within the time and budget constraints of the COVID epidemic, ”Oblong Farm” is a restrained 2200 sf residential structure that co-opts standard modular off-site construction by designing a singular gesture responsive to context and environment. Testing the manufacturer’s limits for transportation, the structure is devised by two heavily-insulated, 15 x 60 feet, engineered wooden modules arranged side by side with a third module hinged by a large yellow spatial void - the color of the local forsythia plant.
The disposition of its modules corresponds to a contextual and environmental analysis that privileges mostly in a East / West longitudinal orientation whilst accommodating the southern breezes and blocking the northern and northeastern winter winds from the entrance at the large yellow void. Both in their scale and non-domestic articulation, the yellow void, and the repetitive cadence of its windows afford a dialogue between residence’s exterior and interior and by extension between it and the nearby farm structures.
On the interior, and again testing the manufacturer’s allowable off-site structural spans, the center 22′ portion of the two modular boxes is exempt from a lower horizontal ceiling as the hinged roof trusses bridge the two modules as envelope and structure. This large connected space becomes the extended family’s hub. The layout also distills the essential components and their connections: A long spatial corridor to the North links all portions of the house to the spatial central hub and the yellow entry porch.
In all, the structure achieves an environmental and contextual responsiveness by leveraging the structural and sustainable opportunities of a standard off-site fabrication and by the minimal means of its orientation and articulation. But it is the dissonance between the domestic and rural scale and type that afford “Oblong Farm” a singular statement beyond its responsiveness.
