Pavilion House

Nestled along Lake Michigan in Wisconsin’s Door County, the Pavilion House is a multi-generational home for family and extended family, who enjoy the summers on the lake. The family has longstanding roots in Wisconsin but currently resides out of state. As a result, the house is an important gathering opportunity for the family to remain connected to their Midwest origins.

The design team was sensitive to creating a home that is inspired by the vernacular tradition of single program buildings such as barns, one-room schoolhouses, sheds, and granaries commonly found in agricultural communities throughout the Midwest. These simple structures often utilize hip and gable roofs to manage Wisconsin’s infamous snow loads. The house thus articulates its program in three hipped and interconnected pavilions to “live”, “rest” and “play”.

Each pavilion is punctuated by a de-centered oculus, which migrates its position for the most optimal spatial location, tipping the roof off symmetry as necessary. Each oculus provides primary illumination for the pavilions, balancing the light source from the window wall and creating a stack effect for improved ventilation.

Given its modest budget and passive green building aspirations, the Pavilion House innovates with its roof structure to create a dynamic and interconnected series of spaces. While conventional hipped roofs often require collar and rafter ties to resist downward thrust and lateral forces, the Pavilion House’s truss structures offer a clear volumetric interior. These are shaped relative to their natural affinities – the surrounding landscape and the interior program – leaning to the light, drawing the separate volumes into a relationship with one another and creating newly implied, overlapping spatial centers.

The structural condition also produces crisp lines of the massing and generates deep overhangs at the windows for optimal natural light and protection against inclement weather. The aperture positions and proportions are turned with the soffits and eaves to maximize the relationship to the outdoors, thereby expanding the psychological boundary of the dwelling and allowing the modest house to “live largely”.

The project promotes regional craft by using exclusively local artisans and craftsmen on all aspects of the building. In particular, the Pavilion House draws upon the excellent woodworking found in the county – precise cabinetry and storage benches are conceived as part of the interior experience and are integrated into the apertures to frame the rooms and the landscape beyond.