Avant-Gardens Community Building

La Porte, Indiana

Avant-Gardens is a 103-acre environmentally sensitive single-family housing development in rural Northern Indiana, surrounded by a 60-acre wildlife and forest preserve.  Its social focus is our LEED Silver certified community building, purposely made as small as possible to minimize its presence in this splendidly restored natural site.  The tiny 1,000sf building is a "breezeway" entry to the community's activity area which nestles a social space (a wide screened porch, open on three sides) and changing rooms for the adjacent swimming pool, under a gently sloped roof plane.  Inside the porch, a heavy concrete wall, deeply marked by its formwork of rough timbers salvaged from a 150-year-old barn that once stood on the site, anchors a kitchen island.  The exterior cladding is vertical cedar boards in various widths, randomly stained in several shades of brown, rust red and gray—a cross between old barn siding and camouflage to blend the building into its rural setting.

Project Data

Area/Budget: 1,000sf / $100,000

Scope: LEED Silver Certified 1000sf community building for 103-acre environmentally sensitive single-family housing development in rural Northern Indiana

Project Team: David Woodhouse, Andy Tinucci (project architect), Rea Koukiou

Enspect Engineering (structural); Michigan City Associates (general contractor)

Photographer: Woodhouse Tinucci Architects