Building Your House : Overview
Overview | Pattern Book | Approved Firms

The wood frame farmhouses, schools, barns, corn cribs and sheds which once dotted much of this region’s landscape are an important point of departure for buildings at Deerpath Farm.

Many of the forms and details of these structures were dictated by climate, local materials and cultural traditions. Houses at Deerpath Farm will offer a contemporary response to considerations of climate, materials and form, taking lessons from these earlier vernacular structures.

Photographs by Paul Lurie and Frederick Phillips, on the following pages 24 through 29 in the Deerpath Farm Pattern Book, are exemplary of this vernacular. In addition we highly recommend the book Abandonings, (Elliott and Clark, 1995) a compendium of photographs by Maxwell MacKenzie of rural buildings and landscapes from the place of his ancestral and childhood beginnings: Otter Tail County, Minnesota.

Selected works from the portfolios of our four recommended architects show how these agrarian forms, colors and textures might be translated into houses. This work is shown following the photos of Lurie and Phillips, pages 30 through 33 in the Pattern Book.

In addition to the above, Deerpath Farm invites architects to look to the land for inspirations, and to take into account the opportunity for long views, natural ventilation, and exciting exterior spaces. (See BUILDING FOOTPRINTS, pages 16 and 17 in the Pattern Book) We encourage designers to re-examine time-tested formulas and tap their imaginations for new ideas that take special advantage of the site. The land invites an architecture which looks beyond the typical suburban house for its inspirations. We encourage all to explore the full spectrum of possibilities.

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