Architecture as Art

Jeffrey Dungan creates masterpieces in his home designs.

- Mary Grauerholz

For Jeffrey Dungan, architecture starts with art, pure and simple. The features of fine art that pull our eyes and imaginations—an instinctive play of light, the sensuous use of curves, and shapes that feel inborn—are some of the longtime architect’s favorite principles to draw on in his work.

So it’s only natural that when Dungan, the principal of Jeffrey Dungan Architecture, was asked to design a home in beautiful Alys Beach, Florida, he immediately began to think of natural, pleasing shapes and malleable materials—something, in fact, like a sandcastle.

“One of my favorite things is to dig into walls, nibble around the edges, and carve, like we did as kids with sandcastles,” Dungan says from his Mountain Brook, Alabama, office. “I also wanted to do something that felt simple.” His materials of choice for the three-story Alys Beach vacation home, concrete and stucco, fit his vision perfectly. “With concrete, unlike wood, you have this great flexibility in formwork, and I’ve always been drawn to curves. I just wanted to play with different opportunities.”

Rather than a hindrance, Dungan found the Alys Beach design dictum—that homes have a white exterior—to be a lovely opportunity for creativity. “White is powerful; it’s a monochromatic palette,” Dungan says. “You’ve got all this white stucco. Shadow striking a white surface is very pure. I found that to be fascinating. What you’re left with is the detail.”