A spiral-shaped shelter for locomotives new and old

Wye Landing Memory Houses by Robert Hutchison Robert Hutchison’s Memory Houses is a speculative project that investigates mortality and memory through the lens of architecture. Situated along the banks of the Wye River on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, architectural typologies such as dwelling, chapel, lighthouse, and memorial weave together spatial narrative about loss and recollection. Distant as well as more recent architectural memories make cameo appearances in the Memory Houses: the stave churches of Norway and the Great Mosque of Córdoba that Hutchison experienced as a child; the lighthouses of the Chesapeake Bay; the timber grain elevators of the Palouse; the Colosseum and the Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome. The project was significantly impacted by Hutchison’s experiences while a Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome from January through July 2017.

One of the nine projects that make up the Memory Houses.

The Round House provides shelter for locomotives of varying lengths and allows them to be turned around. Below the Round House is a subterranean museum to house a collection of model locomotives and associated railroad cars. The roof spirals upwards, creating a constantly changing section through the building’s circumference that ensures the proper spatial accommodation of various sized locomotives. The array of impossibly slender stainless steel columns are a contemporary interpretation of the colonnades found in the Cordoba Mosque.

The geometry of the Round House addresses both locomotives and people. Similar to the Colosseum, stair access to the subterranean museum is perpendicular to the curve of the building. From below, the turntable floating within the circular colonnade curiously resembles the wall that bisects the dome of the Santo Stefano Rotondo al Monte Celio in Rome.

Design: Robert Hutchison, 2017 - 2018
Drawings: Sharon Fung, Marika Meinen, Hillary Pritchett
Models: Xiaoxi Jiao, Jackie Hensy, Hillary Pritchett
Visualizations: Tristan Walker
Location: Wye River, Wye Mills MD

Sources:
American Roundhouse + Colosseum + Santo Stefano + Espacio Escultoric