Modern building technologies and the desire for sustainability and efficiency have combined to bring new construction trends to Cincinnati. From pop-up restaurants in modified shipping containers to the creative use of heavy timber framing, we are seeing some new techniques surface, adding diversity to our region’s built environment.
Childress and Cunningham has expertise in modular construction, which is one such technology. Here, we will explore a case study of how our firm created a custom home concept with a Modernist aesthetic incorporating modular elements.
The Site
Like many sites in the Cincinnati region, this site in Over-the-Rhine is a steep hillside parcel, with the additional constraints of an historic stone retaining wall and a municipal easement. Nineteenth century Italianate buildings are spread among vacant lots, providing context for the new home’s massing and proportions.
The Home
The design has a vertical emphasis, providing two rooftop decks for the enjoyment of the hilltop urban views that include several Cincinnati landmarks. An industrial themed material palette of aluminum, glass, fiber cement panels, and siding wraps the building envelope that is highly thermally insulated and is intended for LEED certification.
The home gets much of its visual interest by stacking modules with more opaque walls and discrete windows at right angles, defining an L-shaped mass. Nestled into the corner is a two-story stack of modules that are more open and glassy that contain the master bedroom and great room. These airy spaces are further delineated from the more solid masses with passive solar sunshades that were designed to be built on-site from simple components, for a fraction of the cost of custom pre-engineered awnings.
The modules are constrained by dimensions that are transportable to the site, and require a certain percentage of solid infill at the sides and top to be stable during transport. Openings in the sides and top of each of the “boxes” are allowed for windows, doors and circulation between the finished modules, but have limits to the amount of each surface they can occupy.
Childress & Cunningham cleverly added voids in the sides of the modules to create interest such as at the headboard wall of the master bedroom to create a fashionable recess while slightly widening the room.
Similarly, cutouts in the ceilings, as in the great room create coves to punctuate the space and create a loftier feeling than what is common in modular construction.
To prevent racking during transport, some modules have panels installed in surfaces with large openings that are removed upon installation. This helps insure the tight fit of the factory built modules when they reach the site, as they tend to be more square and true in dimension than site-built construction.
The modules are designed to be installed on a site-built concrete foundation; Childress & Cunningham designed this as a lower level that includes the garage. Most of the fittings for HVAC, plumbing, and electrical are included at the factory and are connected once the modules arrive.
Does your dream home have challenges that may benefit from our team’s ingenuity? Let Childress & Cunningham show you what is possible with modern building techniques!
