Travis Price turns esoteric dreams into riveting realties. This Solar Cowboy, as he’s known, coined the phrase “passive solar.” This Don Quixote fought and won the right to build a windmill in the ghetto of New York City. This visionary teaches at The Catholic University of America and takes students to Kathmandu and other inspiring sites to build shrines. This award-winning architect gives Washington Spaces an exclusive look at two unique homes he’s recently renovated plus a sneak peek at his exciting, soon-to-be released book, The Archaeology of Tomorrow, Architecture and the Spirit of Place. The book features extraordinary photography by Kenneth M. Wyner, contributing photographer to Washington Spaces.
Price, 57, principal of Travis Price Architects Inc. in Georgetown, has designed everything from a 100-square-foot writing studio for Wade Davis, National Geographic explorer aka “The Real Indiana Jones,” in Washington, DC, to a 1-million-square-foot, solar-powered office complex for the Tennessee Valley Authority in Chattanooga, TN.
A Quest for Meaningful Design
A fascinating example of Price’s most recent work is his dynamic renovation of Julia Slavin and John Arnholz’s home in Washington, DC. To approach their home is to discover an English cottage in the woods – or so it seems. A flower-lined, winding stone path leads to a small charming brick house with slate roof that was built in the early 20th century. Step inside, however, and whoosh. The openness and light transport you instantly into the 21st century and straight out the back to Rock Creek Park. The residence, with floor-to-ceiling glass walls and glorious light pouring in from many angles, is twice as big as it appears from out front.
Slavin explains the before and after contrast of the renovation. “Before, we were living in a closed box. We had exquisite scenery behind the house, but such small windows that when we wanted to see out, we cupped our hands around our faces to look out. With each season, I sort of felt depressed, almost like I was behind the seasons. Now, I feel completely in tune with nature and all the daily subtle changes.”
She continues discussing the spectacular transformation that involved saving every tree on the property while simultaneously creating more usable outdoor space all the while dealing with a severely slanted hill that slopes down in the back from the original cottage. Working with the hill instead of against it, Price designed a dramatic multistory addition. He ingeniously integrated 80’ to 90’ beech and tulip poplars, building decks around the mature trees. These decks, bordered with tempered glass panels, seem to stretch into the woods around them.
“Migratory birds of all different types come through here. It’s a wonderful experience being able to be a part of it. The sound of the birds is deafening at times. We’re up in the trees. We’re up with the wildlife. It’s a complete mood change. It’s no longer a house, now it’s a living experience,” says Slavin, mentioning a foot-long-plus piliated woodpecker she watches just 10’ from her home office window and a family of foxes that lives in the backyard. “The woods are alive, constantly changing, I now feel like I’m a part of that.”
Stairway to Heaven
Using transparent and translucent materials and strategically placed windows throughout the extension, Price’s creation is a constantly changing vision of shadow and light. The translucent stairwell encased in a sculptural multistory tower in the back is the most dramatic feature, pictured right and opposite. The walls for the stairs are made of Kalwall, a translucent fiberglass – the same kind used for insulation – sandwiched between panels. The clear glass ends of the stairs on each floor provide breathtaking views of the woods.
Slavin adores the stairwell. “I love looking at the staircase from the back, it’s like looking at a work of art. ... At night, when you turn on the lights on various floors the light will dissolve and disappear between stories,” she says.
Her favorite part of the house is the magnificent living room, which has a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Rock Creek Park and a custom-made bookcase to one side, pictured above. “Being in that room with my books and that window is a wonderful experience. I get up really early and I go down and sit in that living room and I think, ‘God this is a beautiful place to be.’ ”
‘Spirit of Place’
That is precisely the kind of feeling Price wants his clients to have, essentially experiencing what he calls the “spirit of place.” In fact, the architect strives to capture that spirit and integrate certain components – specifically Stillness, Movement, and Nature – into all of his designs. In the case of the Slavin-Arnholz residence, Stillness comes from the original cottage, which is like a tiny temple in the front. Movement comes as light and energy flow throughout the house inside out and back again. And, of course, Nature, with her towering trees and wildlife, envelops the home.
Back to the Future
Price worked his magic again when he renovated a 1950s home in Northwest Washington, DC. He opened the back of the house with a huge curved wall of windows and essentially brought Nature, with water, grass, and evergreens, right into the living room. The living room previously had large windows across the back wall with a stone fireplace at one end. The off-center fireplace, however, had made the room feel lopsided and was a barrier between indoors and out. Price eliminated the fireplace, replaced it with glass doors, opened the view to the beautiful curved swimming pool and garden out back, and balanced the space with a sense of harmony. He also opened the kitchen so it flows into the dining and living areas.
Removing the paneling that reached from the tops of the windows to the arched roofline across the back of the house made a tremendous difference. “Our big breakthrough came when we replaced the paneling with windows above the back wall,” Price says. He introduced lovely natural light in places where it had not shone in the last half century.
Price made an even more dramatic change when he added a second floor room that extends beyond the bedroom below it with walls of floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. The room is rectangular but the placement of the huge windows on one end creates the illusion that the end is like a crystal cube.
“There’s something about a cube that makes things feel complete and serene. When you’re perfectly still, you feel this perfect geometry and simplicity. Two minutes of that kind of space tranquilizes me,” Price says, pleased to have introduced a Stillness element. Indeed, there is something almost mystical about the space, which has linear rows of windows stretching the length of the room along two sides, inviting in even more light. Surprisingly, these windows along the upstairs outside wall even provide a vista to people seated in the living room. They can see the leaves of treetops dancing outside. Though Price only enlarged this house from 3,100 square feet to 3,500 square feet, it feels like he added much more space. “This was a small house with a big vault. Now, because of the light, it never feels small,” he says. “The house psychologically more than doubled because of the vistas you get.” Movement comes from the arched roof, the gently curving swimming pool, and the swaying motion of the surrounding trees.
The owner, who had always lived in apartments in the past, says, “For me, this is like a little bit of paradise.”
Not Just How, but Why
In addition to delighting his clients, this innovator is creating a modern architectural approach with soul. In his book, due out in October, Price asks, “How do we design buildings and communities that reinforce the richness of being human?” In answer, he writes about reinvigorating the building world with the spirit of place. He seeks to bring human scale back into our buildings with authenticity, metaphors, and myths.
“Architecture is not just about how to build, but why: and how do we build something that stirs us? Thinking about that is the beginning of the poetry of designing diverse, meaningful architecture,” he writes.
“Harmony of the inner world with the outer world, that’s the kind of architecture this new modernism is all about. You’re searching for what you know you don’t know,” says this architect of tomorrow.
