Fisher House (Hatboro, Pennsylvania)
The foundation of the home is built entirely of stone in, for Kahn, a traditional style of building. The stone foundation was necessary due to the home’s placement on a slope and its need for a solid anchoring into the ground of the site. The exterior and interior portions of the home are made from the same cedar wood sourced from the local Pennsylvania area. This was done to keep down costs. The woodwork of the Fisher house is often viewed as the most comprehensive of any of his woodwork during the period. Later projects were said to lack the continuity of the Fisher House, often smaller details such as interior doors were left unadorned in a way that left the project feeling incomplete to viewers. It was best in the end that Kahn was not allowed to build from all stone, because if he had the home would have been lacking in much of the great detail work that makes it so famous. The use of cedar wood throughout the interior and exterior of the home compelled Kahn to create amazing details in the building simply by folding windows into the building envelope to provide new habitable space on both the interior and exterior of the building. Had Kahn been left to build the Fisher House entirely from stone on the exterior then the details he created from windows never would have come into existence.
Rural Khmer house
Typology of Khmer house
The building consists of a supporting framework, which stands on individual foundations. There are no bracing or shear walls to strengthen the structure. The roof is built before wall cladding is applied.
The load-bearing piles of the building stand on single foundations. To comply with the specific conditions of the generally loamy soils, single foundations are laid in the following manner:
At the bottom of a 1 metre deep excavation several wooden poles of 1.5 – 2.00 metres length are rammed into the ground and then covered with a layer of compacted stone, followed by a hewn stone or prefabricated concrete slab, which provides the base for the pile. The excavation is then filled with soil. In a modern version the single foundations are linked with concrete slabs and prefabricated pillars extending to the upper floor are used.
For each pile, a single round hardwood tree trunk, such as .(…) is used. Extending from the foundation to the roof, and in the centre as far as the roof ridge, the piles, together with the horizontal joists, form the bearing structure of the house.