SHIMOMURA/DAVIDSON-HUES HOUSE

A distinguished professor of art at the University of Kansas and his wife, who is also an artist, asked us to design this one bedroom 5,000 sf art studios. They produce large-scale art pieces and needed floor area, volume and uninterrupted wall space for their works in progress as well as their extensive art collection. They wanted the building to screen them from the noisy parkway to the south while opening to the pond to the northeast on a site that drops over twenty feet in its length. The living quarters are tucked in on the lower level facing the pond. The butterfly roof collects water that is diverted off each end through sculptural downspouts. The zero maintenance exterior is achieved with thin concrete panels we cast on the site.