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Jigsaw House Admits Ribbons of Sky Views

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The formal rules of proportions that governed classical symmetrical architecture are rarely seen in architecture today, but in his Jigsaw House, David Jameson Architect uses masses and forms in a modern asymmetrical version of this kind of approach to architecture.

The house is a complete retrofit of a single story suburban house located on a busy corner site, in Betheseda, Maryland.

But what is really interesting about the Jigsaw House the way it chops into the sky. Large cutouts of sky are framed in such a way that the windows offer refreshingly infinite views, affording large spaces without interruption, even in a suburban neighborhood.

Even the clerestory windows assist in bringing the presence of the sky into the house, raising the ceiling with a full four-square sliver of sky view.

“Fundamental to the conception of the house is the notion of reflectivity” say the architects, “rendering unclear the boundaries between inside and outside. Light and space are modulated by meshing ribbons of wall and glass that form a tessellation of solid and void”.

“Jigsaw introverts itself in a continuous spatial flow around an open-air courtyard carved from the home’s remains”, says the architect. “A matrix of spaces is linked by movement through them as storey’s merge and spaces relate to each other as they rise and fall in a series of interlocked puzzle-like volumes”.

“Particularity rather than repetition is employed giving a unique three-dimensional framework to each space where plan and section respond to program simultaneously”.

Where the sky is not used to draw the eye up to a long view, the windows are placed so that privacy is maximized on the corner section in a suburban section.

The conditioning of these internal and external walls is identical. Planes of stucco exterior walls transform into plaster interior walls while passing through glass, which has the effect of merging the exterior and interior.

Images: Paul Warchol Photography