Crowley

The Crowley house, sited on a flat hilltop, enjoys sweeping vistas of Marfa's compelling landscape: a unique combination of rolling grass dunes and chiseled mountain ranges. The sheer exposure and vulnerability of the site, inspired an architecture of boundaries and limits, that nonetheless takes full advantage of unobstructed views across the vast Chihuahuan desert. The spare setting is magnified by the extraordinary quality of light available almost anytime of the year and which is particular to this region of southwest Texas. The ever-surprising tonality of this keen light transforms ordinary objects and features into magical interludes throughout the day. The house is a one-story structure, whose single-room depth threads interior and exterior to form an interrelated whole. The elongated layout defines two distinct courtyards while establishing a protected domain, a shaded sanctuary in the high desert climate. The experience of moving from one space to another becomes a measured interchange between intimacy and expansiveness, between proximity and distance. AUTHOR: Carlos Jimenez, principal of Houston based Carlos Jimenez Studio and a tenured professor at Rice University School of Architecture, is a frequent lecturer and juror at national and international architectural venues, as well as a long-term juror of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Jimenez work has garnered numerous awards and it is known for its simplicity and poetic undertones. ILLUSTRATIONS: 75 colour & 20 b/w photographs & 12 illustrations