Double Square Studio / O’Neill McVoy Architects

Text description provided by the architects. The joy of making a one-room building in the woods – just the fundamentals of light, proportion, spatial volume, and material. The studio is for artist Gelah Penn, who has an active, multi-scalar, and materials-based practice, much of which directly engages wall surfaces. The aim was for a space of proportions and natural light which facilitates her creative process.

The double-square studio is turned with its long, high side facing true north for classic studio clerestory light, then animated by east, south, and west light ‘figures’, including the vertical light monitor which celebrates the artist’s corner installation work.

“Light and height were of great importance in constructing this space because my work deals with visual ambiguity through the manipulation of many translucent and optical materials,” Penn says.

The studio’s north-light angled roof, vertical light chimney, and stair-bridge shape a volume of dramatically varied aspects on each side. The stair-bridge connects to the adjacent garage second-floor studio shared with painter Stephen Maine, creating an artist workshop compound. The ship-lap pine sheathing stained ‘twilight zone’, recedes in shadow and reflects the seasonally changing wooded site.