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NATHAN CROWLEY (1966-)
Nathan Crowley grew up in London. He did a year studying Fine Arts
in London then went to Brighton Polytechnic where he studied
architecture.
His dad and granddad all held a degree in architecture, and he grew
up in a glass house designed by his father. Crowley briefly worked for Thomas Saunders in
London then about six months with Robin Moore-Eadd. After a
while, he was disillusioned with the emptiness of most commercial
architecture. "There was nothing to be part of, nothing to belong
to." Crowley came to the US in 1990. He
entered American film as a junior set designer for the movies Hook
and Bram Stoker's Dracula. He subsequently designed sets for Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine and movies including Maverick, Braveheart,
Assassins, Batman Begins, The Prestige, and many others.
Crowley was on the jury for the
He was hired to work on The Lake House in 2004. He sought a lake with nothing on it, no piers, no houses, just purely nature - hard to find. He ended up using a park. Although the movie was not a big hit, the house he designed was quite extraordinary and loved by the public. It was built expressly for the movie and destroyed shortly after filming. Star Sandra Bullock’s only regret was that the 2000-square-foot glass house was not going to last. “I loved it,” she admits. “I was so disappointed that I couldn’t keep it, move it, and at least use it as a guest house somewhere.” Stunning.
2005 - aka The Lake House, Maple Lake, near Chicago IL. Built expressly for the movie of the same name with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reaves. Crowley collaborated with engineer Fritz Hengge at McDonough Associates and veteran Chicago construction coordinator Troy Osman.
Crowley took the 2,000 square foot
structure from sketches to completion in just ten weeks: 2 weeks
design and documentation, 4 days bidding, and a scant seven weeks
for actual construction. 35 tons of steel and a crew of nearly one
hundred was required to finish the house by the time filming was
scheduled to begin. The house was actually constructed on dry
land next to the lake, atop steel beams that rose 10 feet above the
waterline, which was created by excavating nearly 1200 cubic feet of
soil and letting lake waters flood in under the pilings.
Although the house would be exposed to strong spring winds, Crowley
vetoed diagonal bracing, which would obstruct camera angles.
McDonough Associates had to come up with "moment-resisting frames"
that minimized the kind of lateral movement that could crack the
house's all-glass walls. |
