Kerner-Dee(Light)

By R. Tyler King

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Photography by Scott Smith. Courtesy: Formwork Architecture

Heading east on Market Street toward the Rivanna River, the grid of downtown Charlottesville,Va. dissolves into what Formwork Architecture principal Cecilia Nichols has called the “quiet and clandestine” Woolen Mills. The eponymous mill produced wool for Civil War uniforms and in recent years, its once semi-rural, semi-industrial landscape has become a desirable residential area. Formwork’s Kerner-Dee House captures this evolution by incorporating Woolen Mills’ industrial past within a house typology.

In 2002, William Kerner and Catherine Dee commissioned the Charlottesville-based firm (founded by Nichols and her partner, Robert) to renovate their late-nineteenth-century worker house, one of many that cropped up around the mill. Formwork’s fifth (and last) scheme for the couple proposed parceling-out the property and building a new house in the backyard. “This is an area that needs to be densified,” says Cecilia Nichols, “but maybe not in the same way as downtown Charlottesville.”

“Intuitively it didn’t make sense,” recalled Kerner. Despite his reservations, he saw that the landscape of Woolen Mills had shifted in the last decade to become fertile ground for architectural experimentation. Along with Formwork, Hays+Ewing Design Studio, John Semmelhak with Think Little Home Energy, Robert Kinos and Betsy Roettger (both architects and professors at UVa), Jim Duxbury with Gregg Bleam Landscape Architecture, and GROUNDWORKS principle and UVa professor Richard Price represent a who’s who of area firms.

Four years after Formwork’s renovation on the original house, construction began on what Nichols calls “a precinct” for Kerner and Dee.  Sited high and behind the former house, a retaining wall projecting from the house announces the precinct’s entrance, while delineating a terrace above. Formwork’s approach borrows from the language of light industry, cladding the exterior walls in smooth cement panels. “Where the cement volume gives way, copper detailing projects,” explains Nichols. Wooden rafter extensions and the roofline express the character of the surrounding historic architecture. “There’s something about rural living that’s very pragmatic, in the way that they do things in less decorative ways,” added Nichols.

On the interior, this pragmatism extends to an overall simplicity and lightness, with a simple L-shaped living space. “The idea was that we could borrow space from the kitchen and the living room,” explains Nichols about the dining room. Outside, the precinct centers on a 75’ lap-pool, which the project’s architectural lighting designer, Mark Schuyler, calls “a big lantern.”

“I’m interested in a lot of openness and light, whereas Catherine is consistently is looking for a place she can hunker down–a more private space.” By aiming the expansive living spaces toward the rolling hills of the north and the smaller utility spaces to the south (with views of Woolen Mills), Formwork achieved the mixture of prospect and refuge Kerner and Dee required.

Apertures on the north side admit light indirectly and create a cooler home. But, the southern exposure wasn’t the problem—it was light pollution from an adjacent parking lot. “Being able to control lighting in a reasonable way is really part of the design,” explains Schuyler. “The first question is, what can I delete?”

In 1997, Schuyler sat in on a committee concerning obtrusive light in Albemarle County. A year later, the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission recommended a lighting ordinance, which the City of Charlottesville and Augusta county later replicated. At the Kerner-Dee House, Schuyler worked within the ordinance to mitigate the light pollution by requiring the light industrial property owners to install shields over the lamps. “That’s part of the ongoing design–this issue of darkness. Darkness is nice,” notes Schuyler.

Given its setting, Kerner and Dee’s precinct adheres to an imaginary grid, and in this sense, borrows from urban strategies for densification. Nichols notes, “When you lay out a city, you lay out the grid in such a way that you’ve deployed it throughout some precinct.” But it’s all in an effort to examine how density can work to create a new identity for once-industrial places like Woolen Mills.

Project: Kerner Dee Residence, Charlottesville (completed 2007)
Architects: Formwork Architecture (Cecilia Nichols and Robert Nichols principals in charge)
Landscape Design: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (Thomas Woltz, ASLA, principal in charge)
Lighting Designer: Mark Schuyler
Photographer: Scott Smith
SELECTED RESOURCES

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: DMPW&V
CASEWORK: Artisan Construction
STAIR RAILING FABRICATOR: Metal Is Good
CONCRETE TUB & KITCHEN COUNTERS: ELBWRM (Alexander Kitchin, designer)