The start of this condo build-out was a rectangular shell, with a second floor hanging from the ceiling and open to the space below. Fully below the dune, a parking area also required access to the condo from within, resulting in a series of intermediate landings and an elevator servicing a total of 3 floors. The building section was both its greatest asset and its greatest design challenge. First, structural deficiencies discovered during the design process needed to be remedied, which provided an opportunity to also install additional framing for sky-lighting a tall wall of the main and upper floors. A beachfront setting belied the proximity to the rugged basalt cliffs of the North Shore of Lake Superior and so the generator of the design was a material and spatial study in contrasts: distant and intimate, perch and fissure, rigid pattern and random movements, water’s edge, and cascade. This condo and its context are inseparable.
