Broken China Farmhouse

Architect: Tina Govan Architect (visit website)

Location: Trenton, NC

100 Word Description: This simple Trenton farmhouse is a modern interpretation of the local vernacular found in this eastern part of the state. Using ordinary, off-the-shelf materials, the building directly expresses how it is put together and the role each material plays. Thick walls built of Hebel block hold an interior landscape of wood floors, posts, and private bedroom “houses.†Deliberately framed views of the surrounding farmland are sensuously sculpted out of 24 inch thick walls, capturing the ever-changing “paintings†of the outside. Through honest and simple means, it aims to connect people and place, building and landscape, the immediate and the timeless.

Architect’s Statement: Paul Zapffel’s love for old farmhouses inspired the design for this project, set in a Trenton, N.C.  beanfield.  Ultimately, Paul plans to produce his own NC wine here, from vineyards he’s planted in the surrounding 50 acre working farm, fed by the building’s two 3000 gallon rainwater cisterns. He asked for a house that, when seen from the road, looked similar to other farm buildings dotting the landscape in this rural area of N.C. It is comprised of two simple boxes, house and barn, facing directly south, with roofs precisely pitched so that solar thermal panels can be added to heat hydronic tubing embedded in the floor slab.The house is designed to support Paul’s passions of gourmet cooking, winemaking, entertaining guests, painting, reading and art. A mosaic he installed on the library floor, for example, is testimony to his love of art and craft.  His wish was for a house where he could live simply, with few possessions, as a kind of farmer/artist/winemaker. As a bachelor, he requested privacy only in bedrooms and bathrooms, allowing the rest of the house to flow with overlapping spaces and multiple openings between floors. Rooms are organized along an open stairwell, animated by changing light patterns cast by the sculpted south wall. A balcony overlooking the library below allows Paul to step out from his bedroom into this public spine of the house. Powerfully framed views of the outside are key to the experience of the spaces. Walking up the stair is like being in a tall art gallery, with renderings of earth, plants, horizon and sky arranged on the wall. The building acts as a lens through which to view the surrounding landscape, a surface for the sun to wash, and a way to frame passing moments of the outside. Held within the thick Hebel block exterior walls is an infill of wooden columns, beams, joists, floor planks, and walls. Bedrooms and bath are built as smaller, wooden “houses†within the larger house, with interior roofs of polycarbonate for acoustical privacy. These translucent ceilings are decorated by the complex shadows of roof trusses above and glow lantern-like at nightfall.  Per the owner’s request, there is no drywall. Throughout the house, materials and structure are exposed and easily read. Minimizing finishes, we used simple, off-the-shelf materials such as galvanized pipe rail, pre-fab roof trusses, and exposed fasteners. From the concrete floor to the trusses overhead, there is nothing extra. The structure is the finish. In this way, it is very much like the utilitarian farm buildings that evolved here over time. A quiet and meditative building, it is does not call attention to itself from the road, but once approached and entered, a new experience of the landscape, sun and sky unfolds.

Type of Construction: The building is organized as a hierarchy of materials and construction systems: from the more permanent masonry walls, to the posts and parallam beams which march at seven foot intervals down the length of the house, to the optional infill of plywood partitions and plank floors, all under the umbrella of the roof, which continues independently above.Exterior walls are built of autoclaved aerated concrete block, or AAC, two withes thick (24 “ thick at the 1st floor and 16†thick at the 2nd).  It is a soft material, so we were able to carve openings and joints as we wished, using simple wood saws. Where wall thicknesses change, a sensuous curve is sculpted to negotiate the transition. The block requires only plaster as a finish, both inside and out, which we colored to match the local “marl” of the roads here, or the wheat in the fields when it is growing. A truly green material, AAC is recyclable and airtight, simultaneously providing structure, thermal mass, and insulation. Chemically inert, it is resistant to fire, mold, and termites and gives off no harmful gases. With “mass-enhanced†R-values between R 20 and R 30, depending on the wall thickness, monthly energy costs for the house have not exceeded $30 over the course of a year and have on occasion been as low as $10/month.Trenton, NC is hurricane territory, so Paul was pleased with the excellent protection the AAC  walls provide. In addition, working wood shutters and doors close the building up tight whenever a storm blows through. To achieve consistency, all shutters, interior doors were built like the barn doors, on site, from local plank lumber.

Photography: 2014, Chas Miller Photography  |  Atlantic Archives, Inc./Richard Leo Johnson