The unusual house seen on this 1966 cover showcases contemporary innovations in structural concrete, as seen in this shell design.
Located in Genesee, Colorado, the striking structure sits atop a pedestal composed of concrete columns.
The building was designed to be three stories, with the lowest floor housing a library built into the slope, a glass-enclosed ground floor surrounded by columns, and the shell containing three bedrooms, three bathrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, and terrace, all connected by an elevator.
The architect’s ENR profile, Charles Deaton, described how he “plastically forms a building like a free-form sculpture, only intuitively guided by a structural purpose, until he achieves a satisfactory form. Then the structure fits the form.”
The shell is a welded cage of standard steel shapes that serves as the structural skeleton, covered with metal mesh and pneumatically applied shotcrete. Deaton explained that his design required structural engineers to solve the buckling and torsional issues.
He also designed several unconventional bank buildings, including one that resembled flower petals and another that was ovoid in shape.
Deaton had worked in aircraft design, industrial design and commercial art before turning to architecture.
He ran out of money and never completed the interior of the shell house. It remained unfinished until it was sold in 1999 and completed in 2003.
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