Joseph Tanney

Last updated
Joseph Tanney
Born (1961-03-23) 23 March 1961 (age 63)
Chicago, Illinois, US
Alma mater Ohio State University
OccupationArchitect
Awards AIA Design Award, American Architecture Award
PracticeResolution: 4 Architecture
BuildingsThe Dwell Home
Website Official Website

Joseph Tanney (born March 23, 1961) is an American architect based in New York City. He is known for his work in prefabricated housing. He gained international attention with the Dwell Home, the winner of a 2003 international competition, which is considered a modern prefab icon. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Tanney is the principal and cofounder of Resolution: 4 Architecture, a New York firm known for its high-design modular architecture. [4] [5] He is the recipient of several AIA awards. [6] [7]

Career

Tanney attended the Ohio State University, where he studied architecture under Charles Gwathmey and Peter Eisenman, obtaining his BA in 1984 and MA in 1987, and winning the award for outstanding leadership in the Ohio State architectural community.

After working in the offices of Eisenman Robertson and Gwathmey Siegel, Tanney founded his own architectural firm, Resolution: 4 Architecture (RES4), together with Robert Luntz in 1990. Most of their work consisted of transforming New York City lofts and apartments into modern spaces. In the wake of 9/11 attacks, however, the company had to lay off much of its staff, and Tanney started doing research into both academic and practical uses of prefab and modular houses built in factories. [8] [9]

In 2003, Tanney's design for a high-scale prefabricated home won the international competition of Dwell Magazine, seen as a 21st-century version of the Case Study Houses program. [10] His Dwell Home was hailed as a resurgence of prefab, a "contemporary architecture for people who think they cannot afford architects". [11] By 2008, his firm had built 25 prefab homes, becoming the leading modernist prefab company in the Northeast. [12] By 2015, RES4 had built about 120 prefab houses, including over 60 single-family houses. [13] [4]

In 2013, Princeton Architectural Press published the book Modern Modular: The Prefab Houses of Resolution: 4 Architecture, written by Tanney and Luntz, with a preface by Allison Arieff. [14] Tanney has been a lecturer and guest critic at numerous American universities and schools of architecture. He taught at City College in New York (2001–04), the University of Kentucky (2005-06), and was a visiting professor at Harvard University for their summer professional development program (2002–03). In 2013, he was Visiting Distinguished Professor of Architecture at City College of New York, Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture. [15]

Works

Tanney's most famous work is the Nathan Wieler and Ingrid Tung Home, better known as the Dwell House, in Pittsboro, North Carolina. He designed it for a 2003 competition to build a 2,000-square-foot house for no more than $200,000, excluding land, site work, and fees. [16] Together with his partner Luntz, he came up with a series of rectangular "modules of use" to be combined in different ways to accommodate differing sites, needs and budgets. For the Dwell Home, one of these units was mounted atop another at right angles, adding various decks to connect the structure to the outdoors. Combining traditional wood framing with high-tech modular design, [17] the Dwell Home became a modern prefab icon, and RES4 were hailed as modern prefab pioneers. [2]

It became the basis for RES4's "Modern Modular", a method where dozens of predefined typologies are formed from a series of standard modules. [1] All of such houses are constructed using a series of long, factory-built Lego-like boxes that are connected and finished on the site, [8] so that there are no two houses that look the same. [18] Tanney compared the method to the "customizable structure available in purchasing personal computers". [19]

Another notable work is the "Bronx Box", the first modern prefab home in New York City, built in 2008. [20] When Hurricane Sandy hit the area, the surrounding houses were devastated, but Bronx Box remained intact, with the owners staying inside through the whole crisis. [21] The same disaster was survived by his Dune Road Beach House. [22]

His Brown-Johnson cabin, also known as Lost River Modern, built in West Virginia in 2006, has been described as one of "stylish, higher-end houses designed by architects interested in homes that are built in a way that’s more labor and energy efficient and less wasteful than site-built houses". [23]

Awards and honors

Tanney has won several awards, including:

His houses in Lido Beach and Long Beach included in Arcadia/Suburbia: Architecture on Long Island, 1930–2010, the exhibition of the most significant modernist architecture on Long Island at the Heckscher Museum of Art in 2010. [24] [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralph Rapson</span> American architect

Ralph Rapson was Head of the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota for 30 years. He was an interdisciplinary designer, one of the world's oldest practicing architects at his death at age 93, and also one of the most prolific. His oldest son is the philanthropist Rip Rapson.

<i>Dwell</i> (magazine) Magazine

Dwell is a design and technology brand. It was launched with a magazine in October 2000 by CEO Lara Hedberg Deam with architecture and design critic Karrie Jacobs as its editor-in-chief. In August 2002, Jacobs left the magazine and was replaced by senior editor Allison Arieff. After Arieff, Sam Grawe held the position from 2006 to 2011, followed by Amanda Dameron from 2011 to 2017. William Hanley became the editor-in-chief in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prefabricated home</span> Type of prefabricated building

Prefabricated homes, often referred to as prefab homes or simply prefabs, are specialist dwelling types of prefabricated building, which are manufactured off-site in advance, usually in standard sections that can be easily shipped and assembled. Some current prefab home designs include architectural details inspired by postmodernism or futurist architecture.

Allison Arieff is the Editorial Director of Print for the MIT Technology Review. An American writer and editor, she was, most recently, Senior Editor of City Monitor - The New Statesman. She was previously editorial director for the urban planning and policy think tank, SPUR. From 2007-2020, she wrote a regular column about architecture, design, cities and technology for the Opinion section of The New York Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prefabricated building</span> Building constructed using prefabrication

A prefabricated building, informally a prefab, is a building that is manufactured and constructed using prefabrication. It consists of factory-made components or units that are transported and assembled on-site to form the complete building. Various materials were combined to create a part of the installation process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Kundig</span> American architect

Tom Kundig is an American architect and principal in the Seattle-based firm Olson Kundig Architects. He has won numerous professional honors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter L. Gluck</span> American architect

Peter Lawrence Gluck is the principal of GLUCK+, an architecture firm based in New York City since 1972. A monograph of his work, The Modern Impulse, was published by ORO Editions in 2008. Gluck has designed buildings ranging from structures such as hotels, schools, university buildings and affordable housing to churches, homes, corporate interiors and historic restorations. Many of his projects regularly win national and international design awards and have been published in architectural journals and books in many countries. Gluck's sons are architect Thomas Gluck and director Will Gluck.

Robert Siegel Architects is a New York City-based architecture firm that designs new buildings, renovations and interiors for a wide range of clients and programs. Their public, academic, cultural, commercial and residential projects are located throughout the United States, Korea, China, and Japan. The firms has a won 30 design awards and has appeared in over 50 publications.

Peter DeMaria is an American architect and artist known for his non-conventional use of materials and construction/fabrication methodologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Koch (architect)</span> American architect

Carl Koch was a noted American architect. He was most associated with the design of prefabricated homes and development of the Techcrete building system.

Frank Harmon is a writer, architect, professor and public speaker in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Johnsen Schmaling Architects is an architecture firm located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, where it was founded in 2003 by Brian Johnsen and Sebastian Schmaling. The office is located in a former shoe factory in the Brady Street district of Milwaukee. The principals have described their design philosophy as "poetic realism". Johnsen and Schmaling are on the faculty of the School of Architecture & Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altius Architects</span>

Altius Architecture, Inc. is an architecture and interior design firm based in Toronto, Ontario that designs and constructs custom homes and cottages. The office is involved in projects in Canada, the United States and the Middle East. They practice in a regional and sustainable design process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard T. Fisher</span> American architect

Howard T. Fisher was an American architect, city planner, and educator.

Marmol Radziner is a design-build practice based in Los Angeles that was founded in 1989 by American architects Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner. The firm specializes in residential, commercial, hospitality, cultural, and community projects, and offers various design services, including architectural design, construction, landscape design, interior design, furniture design, jewelry design, and modern architecture restoration.

Edward John "Tim" Seibert was an architect based in Sarasota, Florida. Seibert was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and one of the founders of the modern movement known as the Sarasota School of Architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hiss Residence</span> Historic house in Florida, United States

The Hiss Residence is a mid-century modern home designed by architect, Paul Rudolph. Built as the show home for Sarasota's Lido Shores neighborhood in 1953, the structure blends international style modernism with indigenous tropical design. It is among the preeminent works of the Sarasota School of Architecture and considered “one of the most remarkable homes of the twentieth century.”

Resolution: 4 Architecture (RES4) is a ten-person architecture firm based in New York City, founded by architects Joseph Tanney and Robert Luntz in 1990. The firm is most recognized for their work on prefabricated housing and mass customization of the single-family house.

The Lang Wilson Practice in Architecture Culture (LWPAC) is an architectural firm founded in 1999 by Oliver Lang and Cynthia Wilson. It was first launched in New York City before being permanently based in Vancouver, British Columbia, where it evolved into an interdisciplinary business.

Jeremy Edmiston (1964) is an Australian American architect, founder and principal of System Architects and former director of the Masters of Architecture program at the Anne and Bernard Spitzer School of Architecture at City College, New York. He is considered a pioneer in digital prefabricated design and construction.

References

  1. 1 2 Daniel Akst (29 May 2003). "The Very Model of a Modern Modular House". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  2. 1 2 Lloyd Alter (20 June 2011). "For Rent: Green, Modern, Prefab, Tiny and Earthship Vacations". TreeHugger. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  3. John Hill (5 July 2012). "Houzz Tour: Prefab Cabin in Rural Vermont". Houzz. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  4. 1 2 Pooja Bhatia (13 November 2014). "Your Home: By Truck From Factory". Ozy. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  5. Meghan Drueding (22 February 2012). "Resolution: 4 Architecture's modern modular components". Residential Architect. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  6. 1 2 "AIA Housing Awards 2006". Architecture Week. 24 May 2006. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  7. 1 2 "AIA Connecticut 2012 Design Awards" (PDF). American Institute of Architects. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  8. 1 2 Amanda Abrams (1 September 2012). "Modular Modernism". Green Builder. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  9. J. Michael Welton (14 November 2013). "Modern Modular: Lean and Green". Huffington Post. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  10. "Joseph Tanney and Robert Luntz". North Carolina Modernist Houses. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  11. Craig Kellogg (29 May 2003). "Again, Architecture Discovers Prefab". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  12. Jen Benepe (2 June 2008). "Modern prefab comes to NY". The Real Deal. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  13. Laura Ragazzola (2015). "Signature Prefab". Interni. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  14. Joseph Tanney, Robert Luntz (12 November 2012). Modern Modular: The Prefab Houses of Resolution: 4 Architecture. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN   978-1616890513.
  15. "Fall lecture series 2013". The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  16. Diane Daniel (15 July 2004). "Fab prefab: Dwell magazine leads the rebirth of a modernist movement in housing". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  17. Lynn Becker (3 March 2005). "Pod Sweet Pod". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  18. C. J. Hughes (18 July 2014). "Are Modular Homes Changing the Hamptons Real Estate Market?". Hamptons Magazine. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  19. "The Modern Modular". Resolution: 4 Architecture. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  20. Jennifer Bleyer (10 February 2008). "Legos for the Grown-Ups". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  21. Lloyd Alter (12 November 2013). "Modern Modular: Resolution 4 proves that prefab lives (Book review)". TreeHugger. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  22. Allison Arieff (23 May 2013). "Prefab Lives!". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  23. Nancy McKeon (22 July 2011). "Prefab homes can be far from ordinary". The Washington Post. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  24. "Arcadia/Suburbia: Architecture on Long Island, 1930–2010". The Heckscher Museum of Art. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  25. Marcelle S. Fischler (29 January 2010). "Warming Up to Modern". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 December 2015.