A Bauhaus Bathroom
Proposal with Valerie Speirs
Site: Lincoln, Massachusetts
Program: Bathroom, Visitor Center
Competition Entry for A Bauhaus Bathroom: a call to design professionals and student to propose a public restroom at the Gropius House, a National Historic Landmark.
“MODERN architecture is not a few branches of an old tree – it is new growth coming right from the roots.”
- Walter Gropius
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
- Henry David Thoreau
Concept
Walter Gropius chose to build his home in Lincoln, Massachussets because of the beautiful and historical landscape that surrounds it.
In spirit of the original inspiration of the Gropius Home, this new public restroom and visitor center roots itself in intentional living with the surrounding contexts at play. This proposal listens and responds to its varied suroundings: the mystic of Walden Woods, the historical authors of Concord, and the present-day popular bicyclist trails.
Two volumes nestle into the woods adjacent to the existing garage - which is returned to its original state. A central porch connects these volumes while framing a key view of the house. Vertical wooden screens wrap both the new visitor center and the public restrooms, in harmony with the surrounding rhythm of Maple and Pine trees. This building aligns with contemporary sustainablity practices by meeting passive house standards, using compostable toilets, and powered by solar panels.
Before any interventions break ground: archaelogists, historic preservationists, and other experts will be consulted to understand the story of the land beneath our feet.
In the creation of the Bauhaus, Walter Gropius strived for an affordable and accessible architecture in stride with modernization. In reality, many of the by-products of the Bauhaus went on to become niche and financially inaccessible objects because of the unprecedented shift in design they created. This new center provides space to dissiminate the historic impacts of the Bauhaus movement while shifting forward to an architecture woven in with the historical and enviromental context.