14 Jun From Abandoned buildings to Modern houses

Hi! A little introduction about me; I’m Jureily from the beautiful island of Puerto Rico. This is my first summer internship working with the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), the Federal Government’s oldest preservation program. I will be documenting building with the HABS Architect Robert Arzola. Robert has a lot of experience documentating historic buildings. Usually, the HABS team documented a lot of abandoned buildings, but this year we are going to do an exception an commit with this pretty modern house located in Hollin Hills, Alexandria, Virginia. Short Summary The Hollin Hills historic district is consists of the entire neighborhood, capturing the 1946 and 1956  development phases that continued until 1971. The development was intentionally designed to be part of the landscape, marrying the modern houses with the existing topographical patterns. A product of the Modern Movement, the buildings were created from standardized plans with prefabricated modular elements and window walls that unite the interior with the outdoors. The geometric forms allow the structural skeleton to be exposed, with both interior and exterior walls treated as subordinate screening elements.     As architect Charles M. Goodman experimented with his house designs and trimless modular windows, the window areas were enlarged, often grouped to extend nearly the full length of an elevation while carrying the weight of the roof. The houses of this neighborhood aren’t located in a line one by side. Each  house was sited individually to minimize its impact on the landscape and provide for maximum privacy from adjacent houses. We can see it in my sketch with watercolors to show you the site plan of the house and the northwest facade.         Also, the actual owners of the house are architects! They showed us copies of the original plans in 1953 from the architect C. Goodman and landscape architect Dan Kiley. It was very exciting to see it!