Springs Artists Studio on Long Island by Worrell Yeung

Smaller houses, often bungalows, on extensive forested lots between narrow roads: this is the image that defines many parts of the town of Springs, which is located on the eastern tip of Long Island. Many artists have come here to paint, for instance Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Helen Frankenthaler. 

A refuge with a small area

The clients behind the Springs Artist Studio by Worrell Yeung see themselves as part of this tradition: he is a painter and creative director, while his partner is a florist, and both are art collectors. The 80-m² new building complements a long, narrow, low single-family dwelling on the lot and represents its counterpoint, for it rises quite high and occupies only a small area – a reaction not only to the stipulations in the building plans, but also to the dense surrounding vegetation. 

Studio upstairs, garage below

A short glass corridor joins the existing house to the new structure, whose ground floor accommodates a powder room and a garage that can be used as an exhibition space. The upper level is home to a studio with a panoramic view over the treetops. A surrounding band of windows measuring 1,20 m in height allows light to enter the space and makes the roof appear to float. Actually, it rests on extremely slender steel supports that have been set in front of the interior window mullions, where the two elements can visually meld. Cross-braces made of steel rods reinforce the construction on the horizontal plane. 

A band of windows and a floating roof

With their choice of materials, the architects accentuate the overall impression of lightness. The upper portion of the walls and the interior roof areas are painted white. Four subtle ceiling uplights brighten the space and ceiling as soon as the daylight fades. Beneath the band of windows, the walls have been clad with birch plywood, including a sideboard that delimits the studio from the stairway leading down to the ground floor. This is where the client keeps his painting utensils. 

Interior cladding of birch plywood

The wooden cladding continues on the ground floor: it encompasses the toilet, where the grain can be discerned through the wall paint of Yves Klein blue. The architects chose wood for the facade cladding as well – this time painted in a black that lets the structure visually recede into the background. 

Facade cladding in three widths

Horizontal wooden formwork divides the building into three parts: up at the top, narrow slats just 2,5 cm wide have been mounted, followed by the band of windows. The next facade section is covered with planks measuring 10 cm in width; finally, the ground floor has been clad with planks that are 30 cm wide. Over the course of the building work, the architects had the existing house reclad with wood, thus joining old and new as a single unit.