White volumes standing over still water
Islamorada, FL · Completed

Marlin Boathouse

A working boathouse that closes like a sea chest and opens like a porch.

year
2022
area
2,300 SF
program
Boathouse and guest quarters
01Concept
The brief

Replace a storm-lost boathouse with one that expects the next storm and still spends most of its life wide open over the water.

The site

A protected cut on the bay side of Islamorada, stilted over turtle grass, with the long Keys light coming low from both ends of the day.

The climate move

Storm shutters are the facade: cypress panels that live open as shade wings and crank down flush before weather, so the storm face is the same material as the summer face.

02Blueprint
Plan study
Section: shaded strata
Detail: the meridian datum
Materials, as drawn

Cypress · Galvanized steel · Concrete piles · Standing-seam roof

03Manifest
The response, built

Twelve concrete piles, a galvanized frame, and a cypress skin that does double duty: raised, the panels are awnings shading the dock; lowered, they are the shutters. The guest room above borrows the breeze through a ridge monitor.

The detail that proves it

Hardware is sailboat-grade and hand-cranked; after the last hurricane the owner reported the building 'buttoned up in nine minutes.'

Set to solar time.