po-mo barns

A fun article from Diane Heilenman in the C-J...

The old, black wooden barn is fast disappearing, going the way of barn-raising acts of neighborliness.

It is frequently being replaced these days by kit metal sheds. But some Louisville architects are changing the rural rules.

De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop's “Barn B,” on the plans for Mason Lane Farm in Oldham County, is a combination hay barn and equipment shed the likes of which have never before been seen. The walls are an open grid of Kentucky-grown bamboo, hand-tied with galvanized wire.

It stands on the construction site off Ky. 1694, next to “Barn A,” an equally large but enclosed combination farm office, equipment shed, workroom and storage area, or maintenance barn, clad in dark-brown metal walls with projecting “fins” at tall vertical windows. The fins mediate solar gains and losses according to season. They echo the ventilation openings on traditional, black Kentucky tobacco barns....