Schaffer House by John Lautner. Complete overview and walkthrough.

hello my dear audience in this episode we gonna visit an absolute Masterpiece the shaver house is small in size and with no luxury facilities still it is full of interesting designed features made mostly of wood and surrounded by trees and has the enclosed feeling of a cabin in woods yet at the same time the large windows make the design extremely spatial and the house constantly balances between intimacy and transparency for house is generally considered as the of the early houses by Lautner and like many of these early designs the influence by Frank Lloyd Wright is still prominently visible with a single story floor plan and a cheap construction of wooden bricks the shaver is inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's usonian Style despite these similarities Lautner goes with the Shaffer house for the first time a step further than ride a mixing the interior with the exterior creating a strong interaction between inside and outside also different than Frank Lloyd Wright are the multiple axes of the house that create many different perspectives that lead to few into the landscape shaver resonance is probably best known for its use in a movie a single man which was almost entirely filmed inside the house if you haven't seen it go watch that wonderful movie on many photos the house looks isolated deep in the forest ironically nothing can be further from the truth because it is located in a Suburban environment and is enclosed by neighboring houses from all sides look the same and with his unusual design the Schaefer residence immediately catches your attention when driving by also interesting is that the house is partly sunken below street level due to the rising Hillside this further contributes to the enclosed character of the house from the street we see the entrance in the garden fence and to the right of the entry is the carport before we step inside we first gonna take a look at the floor plan house is way shaped from above why did John Lautner choose for this unusual shape the commissioners of the house already owned the location many years before the house was built and used it as a as many beautiful oak trees would be kept in place and therefore John Lerner had to design the house around the already existing trees a second reason for the shape is that John Lautner wanted that every room could look into the garden and that you could see the trees from everywhere in the house we colored the separated space of the house and named the different functions floor plan turns out to be very open and when we decorate the Drone with Furniture we see how compact this house actually is from the entry gate we walk through the garden [Music] from the front door we step right into the living room once inside the first thing that stands out are the many red and brown colors in combination with an interplay of light and Shadow making the living room feel like a continuation of the forest outside the wooden roof beams are visible at a ceiling and they form a pattern of stripes and lines which creates a strong linear perspective and makes the interior look larger than it is because the roof is placed in different directions the interior looks different from every angle here is a skylight that brings sunlight inside in front of the fireplace the large open living room is divided by the brick fireplace that has openings on both sides and create two different sitting areas one sitting area is more like a den and a smaller with a private character it couch built in an Alcove [Music] two large Windows come together in the corner the lack of a window frame in the corner breaks open the living room and increases the feeling of space at the inside of the corner is a reading area that is Sun lit like a Conservancy here's a small rectilinear planter which brings the Garden in front of the inside of the windows John Lautner wanted to have an unbroken view towards the garden and therefore the use of window frames was limited and two windows were glued together in the corner for excess strength four gloss blisters were placed against the outside of the windows here's the back door from where you can step into the garden and next to it is not a planter that could function as an internal Garden but on this photo it has only pebbles in it above it is a series of small skylights [Music] next to the planter and the skylights is the second sitting area which is larger and has a more open character it is heated by the other side of the fireplace and there's a trellis of vertical wooden beams that is there for privacy reasons because it prevents people to look into the sitting area from the garden the light that falls through the openings in the trellis recreates the play of light and Shadow that you see in Forest when sunlight falls through the trees the dining table and from there the living room looks like the composition of an abstract artwork instead of the more conventional sliding doors the glass doors swing open on hot days almost the entire right side of the living room opens towards the garden allowing a stream of fresh cool air and blurring The Verge between inside and outside through the swing doors we step outside on the Terrace part of the roof extends all the way to the back side of the garden so there's lots of place to sit outside in the shadow in the rear the porch is supported by a brick wall that is v-shaped from a bath [Music] foreign [Music] of the kitchen we go around the large oak trees and arrive at the laundry and storage units which are placed at the back side of the cardboard [Music] thank you from this door we step inside the kitchen the Mason carpentry in the house is made mostly of Redwood which comes from a cypress tree this kind wood was also the favorite material of Frank Lloyd Wright [Music] the wall of the kitchen is made from horizontal wood boards combined with small rectilinear Windows the wood boards create enough privacy while the windows in between still provide a few of the garden this makes the house transparent and intimate at the same time it's like living in a glass house and still being invisible the lines of the wood board also lead the perspective outside and they recreate the typical Shadows that you see so often in the forest the walls of the kitchen are almost identical with the garden fence making it hard to see what's outside and inside again enlarging the feeling of space we leave the kitchen and go to the bedroom wing [Music] there's a glass Alcove that has a planter with the same Pebbles as at the other side of the gloss this creates illusion that a garden enters the house after climbing up two steps we arrive at the bedroom the bedroom has many built-in closets these non-removable cabinets are very common in houses from the 40s 50s and 60s while sleeping in bed you can look outside at the bushes and trees through a large horizontal frameless window for privacy reasons only the bathroom has smaller sized Windows because wood cannot resist water the walls of the bathroom are made of corrugated steel this was cheaper than Stone and it reveals that expensive looking House was built very economic um the office or study room also functions as a guest bedroom a Ashley here you can see how good the interior continues into the garden because the window is placed diagonal there's hardly any reflection and again there's no window frame in the corner this makes the gloss almost invisible the garden becomes part of the Interior looking like an internal planter and making the small room feel very large while sitting behind his desk you can hardly believe that you are so close to the street which is just at the other side of the garden fence for so far the walkthrough of the Interior but this video wouldn't be complete without an overview of the roof construction which is unlike any other house in the world roughly you can see that the house has three different kind of roofs first is the flat roof then there's a diagonal roof above the kitchen which climbs to the east side and finally there's the gable roof which is L-shaped from above and partly overlaps the flat roof this is the ridge of the roof and in this direction both sides of the roof climb to the highest point let's now explore each of the roof Parts one by one we begin with the flat roof this roof starts in the garden enters the house goes through the living room and then it goes over the front door finally it ends at the cardboard the roof is first supported by two brick walls of the cardboard the wall at the left is made of wood and has no retaining function series of pillars is placed in the wall that separates the kitchen from the Garden Path because of these pillars it is still possible to have a fan window of the entire length of the wall then the roof is supported by two brick walls which you can see here although this looks like a chimney the chimney is actually here and this is a massive column made of bricks that supports the roof in the middle [Music] once outside the roof is supported by wooden pillars that look like a continuation of the window frames inside they take the perspective of from a living room into the garden finally the roof is supported by the v-shaped brick wall [Music] now we go to the gable roof The Ridge of the roof is supported by a horizontal trellis of Three Wooden beams trellis starts next to the window of the study room then it is supported by the internal wall of the bedroom and then it makes a sharp turn and it spans over the living room Corner in the ridge was made by miter sawing the beams and placing them against each other for extra strength steel corner joints where placed around the contact points the trellis is supported by one of the brick walls that is also supporting the flat roof the ridge continues outside where it is placed on a flat roof the lower part of the roof is supported by a second trellis these three beams also start in the study room [Music] and are resting largely on the internal walls of the bath and bedroom [Music] they end on the brick column next to the fireplace that also supports the flat roof the edge of the roof which forms the lowest part is supported by a series of wooden pillars that also function as window frames in corner of living room the reason for the unusual construction of the gable roof is that you don't need internal pillars or retaining walls so you can have large windows and Open Spaces underneath interesting is that a ridge continues beyond the end of the gable roof and partly helps in supporting the diagonal roof by forming a part of the construction however for the most part this diagonal roof rests on the flat roof at the left and at the right it rests at the diagonal window frames that continue into vertical pillars in the wall of the kitchen what's the reason for this diagonal roof the high oak trees largely prevent the sunlight from entering the house by placing the roof and the windows diagonal you have a clear story from where you can look at the tops of the trees and catch the sunlight from a bath there's a triangular window at the vertical side of the gable roof the Schaefer house is one of my favorite designs balotner it's peaceful warm and humble yet at the same time it is spectacular experimental and daring a genius design that still looks fresh and modern after 75 years making it a perfect example of Lautner's brilliant Vision or architecture

Channel: John Lautner Architecture Videos

Views: 43,884

Keywords: schaffer house, schaeffer house, john lautner, frank lloyd wright, a single man house, house from movie a single man, usonian house, mid century modernism, modernist architecture, modernism, american architecture, glendale california, design, interior design, luxury house, home walkthrough, richard neutra, art history, J.W Schaffer, le corbusier, suburban home

Id: tCUyCW4qLtA

Length: 17min 43sec (1063 seconds)

Published: Sat May 06 2023