Over/Under House
Location
Springfield, MOStatus
Under Construction Early visits to the home site yielded observations of a fallen tree spanning over a ravine on the hillside. This simple, primitive yet impactful encounter suggested a geometry known to ancient pagans and alchemists as the symbol for the classical element of earth. With a well documented history of mining on the site as well as numerous cave entrances, the people of the Ozarks have been exploring above and below ground in this area for hundred of years, going back to the native Osage tribe.
In this way, the site was calling for a construction that engages in a dialogue with the earth. the home invites you to observe and interact with the surrounding forest through strategic view corridors and pathways. The home is cladded in wood, limestone, and steel materials blending it into the hillside, telling a story of the adventures through a mineshaft.
Much like Calvino’s Eusapia from Invisible Cities, the design seeks to disassociate the threshold between the underworld (subterranean). and the overworld (superterranean), of time and timelessness. This notion expresses itself through the home’s geometry and siting, and is reinforced by its materiality. A continuous horizontal datum slices through the layout, mineshaft-like, guiding the inhabitant back and forth from a perch in the tree canopy to spaces buried into the hillside. In this way the protagonist glides seamlessly between the underworld, overworld, and sky.
SPECS: 6,900 s.f. single family
