KY River House
Frankfort KY

For the Kentucky River House, located on a very narrow site on the scenic Kentucky River, unrelenting constraints became a creative force for the development of the project. First, the $150,000 budget limited the size, complexity, and palette of materials. Second, the location, although the capital of Kentucky, has a very limited pool of contractors. Third, because the area floods frequently, FEMA guidelines had be addressed. The stipulations of the client’s loan also added a level of complexity.

Water is both friend and foe; it wants to be accessible but problems of flooding, financing, mold and rot resulting from the high humidity are issues that continually try to undermine this desire. So we decided to exploit the possibilities of concrete and concrete products. First, it is resistant to the environmental concerns, and second, because of the recent boom in concrete highway and bridge construction in the area, we were confidant we could find a skilled contractor. We were interested in how concrete, a heavy material, could perform in multiple ways, even becoming porous and fluid.

According to FEMA, there are two ways to deal with flood waters: direct the flow around a structure or allow the flow into the structure. So diagrammatically, the house became a series of planes oriented perpendicular to the flow of flood water. These are economically made of a structural concrete tilt-up system typically used for warehouse structures. Within a standard concrete wall is a pixelated pattern of PERMACELL, a commercially- available permeable concrete product whose porosity and translucency become counterpoint to the solidity of the concrete.

and night: permeable concrete finwalls flicker with patterns and shadow