A house by the sea ranks among our most enduring fantasies, a dream impervious to climate change even as it threatens historic structures and rewrites the rules of building. Fire Island Pines, New York is filled with midcentury homes that hosted the Stonewall generation, as captured in Christopher Rawlins’ book Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction. Its pace has only quickened in recent years. Set upon a glorified sandbar, the Pines is a vortex of the pleasures and perils of our time.
Christopher’s practice is currently restoring several homes by Horace Gifford and Hamptons architect Norman Jaffe. Charles Renfro leads a global, experimental architecture practice, but escapes to a diminutive 1962 Horace Gifford home nestled in the dunes, without air conditioning. Now we have to build high and hale. Where are the opportunities in this? Christopher and Charles join forces for a humorous and searching exchange of ideas and designs for this challenging new world. With the Hamptons and Fire Island as their muse, they chart multiple paths to context and community.
Charles Renfro is a Partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro and teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He is an architect working at the intersection of building design, the arts, and academia. DS + R’s monograph Architecture: Not Architecture was published by Phaidon Press in 2025.
www.dsrny.com, @diller_scofidio_renfro
Christopher Rawlins is the Founder of Rawlins Design and Pines Modern. His book Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction (Expanded Edition) was published by Artbook in 2025.
RawlinsDesign.com, @rawlinsdesign
PinesModern.org, @pinesmodern
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