rainbow lake boathouse

The Rainbow Lake Boathouse is a small, simple volume, designed to bring users closer to nature, and to the many interdependent systems in the 6.1M Acres of the Adirondack State Park. Serving as a threshold between land and water, the design was an exploration of a single material used two different ways. Native wood is used with either its natural coloring - yellowish to silver over time, or charred using the tradition of Japanese Shou Sugi-Ban.

These two natural processes produce dramatically different colors and textures, while protecting it through natural processes. The spacing of wood is also varied to allow a range of light and breeze to pass through it. Using only these two variables - treatment and spacing - the design created a different response at each facade that responds to the activity and microclimate of each direction.

The boathouse is a manifestation of living close to nature. The vast rawness of the Adirondack environment is something that needs both protection and protection from. The boathouse mediates that sensitivity through the modulation of material, light, and air. Natural woods are used at areas of human contact, inviting visitors to sit, touch, or move through.  Charred wood is used for more static surfaces - the deep char offers protection from the elements while receding to the background.

The upper datrum of the charred wood shifts to a slight screen, providing a continuous clerestory around the boathouse that invites light and breeze to move through the structure. A screen of the same spacing is used at all doorways - with a change in material to differentiate them as a space for movement as well.  The broadest screen occurs at the stair and railing - enabling views, while still providing protection and a nest-like sense of enclosure.