To be built on a vacant double lot in Palm Spring purchased from the estate of Bob Hope, the clients wanted two houses – one to keep and one to sell, but that would act as a pair of sisters [similar in sensibility but unique in personality]. Founded in the modernism of the place, the houses need to act as a frame mediatng between the foreground of the swimming pool and the background of the majestc moun-tains. The house became a material blind, cropping and bounding spaces, flowing between inside and out and minimally creatng a desert experience through the material architecture.
Type: New Construction – 2 Houses
Location: Palm Springs, Ca
Date: 2012-Current
Gail Peter Borden
Gail Peter Borden, FAIA attended Rice University, simultaneously receiving Bachelor of Arts degrees (all cum laude) in fine arts, art history, and architecture as well as his BARCH, also cum laude. He went on to Harvard University’s GSD to complete a post-professional Masters of Architecture with distinction.
Borden is the Director of Graduate Programs and tenured Professor at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design at the University of Houston. As principal of Borden Partnership, his design work has won numerous recognitions including: the Architectural League Prize; the AIA Young Architect Award; BD+C’s “40 Under 40” award; and numerous AIA, ACSA, and RADA awards. Borden received artist-in-residence awards from the Chinati Foundation; the Atlantic Center for the Arts; the Borchard Fellowship; and the MacDowell Colony. He was named the youngest Fellow of the AIA in the history of California.
His books include: Material Precedent, 2010 (Wiley); Matter, 2011 (Routledge); Principia, 2013 (Pearson); Process, 2014 (Routledge); Lineament, 2017 (Routledge); and New Essentialism, 2017 (AR+D).
As an architect, artist, theoretician, and practitioner, Professor Borden’s research and practice focuses on the role of materiality and architecture in contemporary culture.
Borden Partnership:
Our research centers on the Borden Partnership: a multi-disciplinary architecture firm specializing in the architecture of the “everyday.” Current explorations into the single-family house, as the fundamental building block of the American suburban landscape, investigate the most pervasive building type deriving this “common” condition, offering the greatest potential for influencing the course of design. The collective vision of these design investigations is to provide a new direction within the contemporary constraints and guidelines of both practice and financial. Looking at the contextual, historical, environmental, ethical, experiential, political, programmatic social, technological, typological, and urban processes that govern this landscape with a goal towards reorienting the significance of space and architecture in this most common of realms. This research believes in a firm dedication and movement towards an ultra-modern architecture that redefines through celebration of the inevitable.
