When you think housing development, you don't think great architecture. McMansions, yes. Taliesins, no. But in Southampton, New York, on the wealthy eastern end of Long Island, developer Coco Brown is creating a modernist art gallery disguised as a subdivision.
The curator - yes, there's a curator - is Richard Meier, the architect best known for the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Meier rounded up some 45 "starchitects," including Zaha Hadid, Michael Graves, Shigeru Ban, and ninetysomething Philip Johnson. Each was asked to come up with a design for the project, dubbed the Houses at Sagaponac, then given a budget of about $200 per square foot. The first home is slated for completion in October; the whole development will be finished by 2008.
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What can we expect from all this high-profile talent? Well, it's true that spare, sharp minimalism doesn't easily blend into a forest. The layouts, ranging from 2,300 to 5,500 square feet, look like a squadron of retro-futurist spaceships hidden in the woods. Some abandon backyards in favor of central courts, drawing the eye inward (and away from nature). But most of the plans make use of the warm light that has lured artists to the Hamptons for decades. Annabelle Selldorf's home includes a sleeping porch and a series of covered, outdoor spaces; Marwan Al-Sayed channels light into his house through a roof made of long glass beams.
The development has already had about 40 serious inquiries from young, moneyed aesthetes willing to plunk down $4 million for an architectural statement. "They like stark. They like cold. They love concrete floors so much that they come to us to lay concrete on top of wood," says Mojgan Hariri, who codesigned one of the homes. But owners will have to suffer for their art - parts of the site are under the landing path for East Hampton Airport.
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