Anthony Gagliardi
Architectural Design
Brooklyn, NY
Anthony Gagliardi is a co-founder of Almost Studio. He is currently an Instructor at the Syracuse University School of Architecture where he teaches in the undergraduate design studio curriculum. Prior to Syracuse, Anthony was a Critic at the Yale School of Architecture where he taught a graduate advanced design studio and drawing analysis course with Peter Eisenman. He has worked for firms including Eisenman Architects and Steven Harris Architects on projects ranging from urban master plans to site-specific residences. Anthony received a Master of Architecture from Yale University , where he was the Yansong Ma Scholar, and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture with Distinction from The Ohio State University.
Featured Work
Project Title: House for a Photographer
Year: 2020-current
Location: Pioneertown, California
Project Description
It can be easy to get lost in the open desert. Given the increasing reliance on digital technologies to orient oneself in the world, when cut off from such lifelines the next best thing might just be a boulder in the distance. House for a Photographer is a study in how the surrounding environment can provide architectural clarity. Scattered with boulders, animal paths, rills, and vegetation, the site contains its own solution to homemaking. Mapping the landscape, two grids are overlaid. One delineates the axis of true-north, another orients itself to a prodigious rock on the site establishing a local coordinate system of rock-north. From here, a series of nine-square grids survey the ground around the rock, shifting from true-north to rock-north and highlighting segments of the surrounding landscape. Compositionally, each segment has a unique character all its own, calling attention to every Joshua tree, bush, or boulder as it relates to the grid. Following this logic, House for a Photographer is conceived as a series of fragments, mirroring the scattered patterns of the local environment. A sequence of stairs, plinths, and frames subtly suggest procession through the site. Each fragment focuses on a particular aspect of the environment, navigating visitors towards the broad frontality of the central rock. Slipping past the metamorphic stone, the house is unveiled as an aggregation of discrete rooms. Mass is added or erased, and forms rotate, converge, or scale in relation to the landscape. In the end, the desert itself is the most reliable compass for design, slowly revealing the home through the act of mapping.