This home nestles into the side of a long ridge, allowing the formal quality of the hill to retain its reading as the primary object and defining element of the landscape.

The structures do not dominate the landscape: they actively participate in the site’s multiple readings. Three distinct volumes reinforce the ridgeline and nestle between the existing Beech trees. An undulating footprint defines a series of southeast facing outdoor rooms, which address unique views from or through the house to the pastures, horizon, and sky.

Along this footprint, the building’s glazed skin slides to open up large expanses of entire rooms to the south and to the site. Columns are disengaged from the wall to allow for the skin to slide independently.  Large overhangs shield the summer sun, while admitting direct light in the winter. The large openings facilitate cross ventilation, to allow for a diminished use of air conditioning.  Screened panels can slide into the window’s place, in effect turning the main living rooms of the house into large “screened porches.”

Program spaces are distributed between the volumes, creating varied layers of occupation, which are altered and adapted through manipulation of shifting interior partitions. Movement through the house from the west to the east reinforces the ridge’s declared levels of privacy and intimacy. The house unfolds in layers, culminating in unobstructed views of the farm and the ocean in the distance from a private balcony off the master bedroom, perched atop the living room roof

The palette is minimalist allowing the interior space, the site and light to be the primary medium of the scheme.  FSC lumber is used throughout.

Integral plaster walls are reflective and bring and hold the landscape they mirror into the interior volume of the house.

Photo Credits:

Chuck Choi Architectural Photography