Architecture at Home

Large, sculptural architectural follie made of glulaminated beams, Arkansas timber, integrated into the forest with sunlight casting across it.
View of a metallic structure with a translucent roof, showing autumn trees with orange and yellow leaves outside.

Conceived, directed, and curated. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, July 9, 2022 – January 31, 2023. Five firms. Seen by more than 300,000 people.

Architecture at Home was five full-scale experimental houses built on the grounds of Crystal Bridges by five architecture firms from across the Americas: LEVENBETTS, MUTUO, Perez Palacios Arquitectos Asociados, studio:indigenous, and studioSUMO. I conceived it, chose the firms, and curated it across four years. More than 300,000 people walked through it.

It began as a question I couldn’t stop asking: can beauty and affordability live in the same structure, and what happens when architects start with the people who will live there instead of the numbers? I set four principles as the foundation and asked every firm to build from them: emphasize the humanity of the occupants, choose materials carefully, build efficiently, take place seriously. Each firm researched Northwest Arkansas first, then built. LEVENBETTS made a mass-timber house of Arkansas pine. studio:indigenous built around a towering steel hearth. studioSUMO’s totem house told suppressed histories in engraved wood. MUTUO turned the obstacles to homeownership into literal columns you had to walk around. PPAA built a house that could stand alone or link into a village.

The show became something more searching than a technical argument. Each structure told a story about individual sovereignty and the deep human ties to land, place, and history that architecture so rarely admits. It asked what happens to a community when housing reflects the people inside it, and it let 300,000 people stand inside the answer. I told Dezeen at the time that my goal was to prove affordability, beauty, and diversity in housing can coexist. I still believe it, more than I did then.

Crystal Bridges’ first outdoor architecture exhibition, and an argument for a more intentional, more humane way of building the world. I’ve been making it in every room since

Sculptural, expressive architectural follie designed by studio:indigenous integrated into a deep, sun drenched forest.
Pink, concrete, hand carved wood totems, ceramic stacks comprise this expressive architectural follie at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
deep in a lush green forest, tall trees rise to blue sky, a linear punctuated architectural follie holds its own, referencing the silhouette of the iconic home.
Sunlight pours into the dense green forest, a metal and clear trapezoidal structure rises from the dirt, this architectural follie blurs the world around it while still letting its presence through.
Translucent panels, metal beams, this architectural follie set against a forest of fall foliage defines the concept of this project.
Pink panels, metal beams, hand carved indigenous Mexican totems.
Detail of modular wooden structures referencing the shape and typology of a house.
Undulating wood beams supported by glue laminated panel wall structure by LEVENBETTS at Crystal Bridges Museum.
Paneled wood outlines the structure of this sculptural architectural follie underscoring the relationship between space and sky.