THE
GEORGE E. MERRICK
STONE
GUEST HOUSE

A place for Dwelling, Thinking and Making shall be the final project of the semester. Students will be asked to draw upon the knowledge gathered up to this point in the semester by taking on the challenge of designing a small Guest House. Having explored the discipline of Architecture through rigorous precedent analysis and exemplary models of works of architecture capable of imparting knowledge on conventions in architectural composition in response to a culture, climate, materiality, technology, use and form, students will engage in questions of convention, tradition, repetitive paradigms and invention.

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The setting for the new design shall be within the public grounds of the Merrick House Museum, a historical site of cultural importance in the City of Coral Gables. The design shall provide a place for an invited guest artist/scholar (painter, sculptor, musician, poet, writer, dancer, researcher...) to be in residence while completing their creative work. There will be a virtual tour of the site to aid in understanding the physical attributes and history of the place. The goal of embellishment and completion within an existing valued context shall be explored using principles of architectural composition studied in the preceding projects of the semester. 

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This is a request for ideas, a proposal for an additive work of architecture that embraces the spirit of place that is Coral Gables, a "Garden of Eden" in the conception of its founder an American phenomenon in terms of its Urban Design, a garden with an architectural and urban legacy. It is within this framework that you are asked to design a simple, elegant, and complementary Guest House.