Project Description
Set gently into the ground and surrounded by prairie grasses, this project forms a subtle dialog with the natural systems that support us. The Prairie House is a project that uses actuated tensegrity systems, in conjunction with soft cladding systems, to produce a house that is estimated to emit less than half of the carbon of a typical house in Illinois while also letting the most beautiful qualities of parametric architectures to flow into the world via physical responses that produce new patterns for the life of the Fashion Pattern Maker and Fiber Artist who occupy the space. This work is driven by an interest in using programming as a form of architectural media that is able to transpose new modes of very specialized operation onto standardized building assemblies to produce an active dialog between the user, the environment and the building skin itself.