Baird Prize Competition | First Place

CHANNELING CABIN, FALL'18

Traces of the Ithaca Gun Company populate the island next to the falls. Earth bearing walls, and orthogonal slits are cut into the rock surface to expose the layers of sediment that have collected and cantilevered due to erosion. The natural runway of water drainage that cuts through the landscape parallel to the water flow of the falls, has been enhanced, thus creating the island. Trees trickle like water through the isolated landscape in a symbiotic relationship with the shale of rock, to support structure while also nesting through it.

In navigating to and through the island, a series of existing cuts propagate selectively in an incline towards the head. These paths draw channels of vision throughout the landscape, from the Ithaca Gun Company smokestack up to the origins of the runway and through to the falls. Continuing this preexisting feature, the cut extends to the cabin, where one is greeted by a framed view that gazes across the valley. This view is inaccessible unless navigating into the cabin, a heavy steel wall that is hung by columns that slit between the layers of shale. The façade yields a progression of three views: an open versatile frame, a solid opening that invites the external natural conditions, and a cut that seeps between the cabin. Traversing into the cabin, one is directed in junction with Stewart Avenue Bridge and Rocky Falls before entering the space: two paths that run parallel to the creek. As the island is separate by a cut, the private and public spaces are separated by a bridge.