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into southern and northern walls. When open, the dining room becomes a picnic area and the living room fireplace becomes a campfire. Multiple layers of bronzed metal fabric at the clerestory windows in the living area fold and unfold to adjust sunlight for optimal brightness & temperature of the space. These operable architectural elements use the natural environment to create suitable living conditions.

The house is environmentally friendly in its overall construction and planning with geo-thermal heating and cooling, shading and venting systems, solar panels, and organic finishes and materials. Lending to the structure’s sustainability, the house is assembled, rather than built, with a prefabricated foundation, panel siding and efficient built-ins, minimizing construction debris and toxins such as concrete foundation tar on the site. With the owner’s initial premise of camping, the design and functionality of the house promote a memorable experience for friends and family in the natural environment.

vase holders, or flat surfaces for hot dishes. At other times, the tubes can be removed and the trough filled with ice for chilling drinks. For a change of pace, there is dining on the roof deck at sunset, barbequing on the terrace, lunch in the shade of the pool house canopy, or breakfast in the screened porch. Each space is unique, making each meal special.

Even the morning routine becomes an event. In the kids’ rooms, a ribbon of stone traces their morning ritual. Starting as a nightstand by the bed, it becomes a bench for their pile of clothes, a desk for checking their email, a sink in the bathroom, and, finally, the shower floor. In the parents’ master closet, hidden steel hooks pivot up from the mahogany bench to hang the day’s outfit choices.

The clients wanted this to be a gathering place for their family, full of memories for generations to come. Thus the materials were chosen not only for durability but also for their gradual changes over many years. The copper siding and roofing will slowly turn green as the weathering limestone becomes darker. However, the window system will stand the test of time unchanged. An English company has manufactured the same industrial steel windows for over 150 years and many early examples are still in tact. A geothermal heating and cooling system, green roofs, organic finishes, and triple glazed windows will minimize the structure’s environmental impact over the generations.

The clients look forward to many tranquil summers together with their family in the house.

vase holders, or flat surfaces for hot dishes. At other times, the tubes can be removed and the trough filled with ice for chilling drinks. For a change of pace, there is dining on the roof deck at sunset, barbequing on the terrace, lunch in the shade of the pool house canopy, or breakfast in the screened porch. Each space is unique, making each meal special.

Even the morning routine becomes an event. In the kids’ rooms, a ribbon of stone traces their morning ritual. Starting as a nightstand by the bed, it becomes a bench for their pile of clothes, a desk for checking their email, a sink in the bathroom, and, finally, the shower floor. In the parents’ master closet, hidden steel hooks pivot up from the mahogany bench to hang the day’s outfit choices.

The clients wanted this to be a gathering place for their family, full of memories for generations to come. Thus the materials were chosen not only for durability but also for their gradual changes over many years. The copper siding and roofing will slowly turn green as the weathering limestone becomes darker. However, the window system will stand the test of time unchanged. An English company has manufactured the same industrial steel windows for over 150 years and many early examples are still in tact. A geothermal heating and cooling system, green roofs, organic finishes, and triple glazed windows will minimize the structure’s environmental impact over the generations.

The clients look forward to many tranquil summers together with their family in the house.

While the house’s cantilevered second story resonates with the other homes on the street in its simple gabled structure and traditional clapboard siding, the ground level is wrapped in a unique custom-milled rainscreen siding. The top edge of each board is beveled subtly at different angles to render varying degrees of shadow and permit various amounts of transparency across the facade. As the sun moves across the sky throughout the day, high to low through the seasons, and crisp to diffuse through atmospheric changes, so too will the house’s surfaces and spaces beyond change dramatically over time. In this way a photo-graphic (light-drawing) technique is activated by changes in the natural environment, uniting the clients’ interests and lifestyle in their home and site.

Amplification of the play of light on the built structure is pursued further inside the house. Above the living room a half-butterfly roof diffuses southern sunlight through a frosted glass clerestory and reflects it deep into the dining area. At the stairwell a dormer nestled in the gabled roof lights the tall column of space from three stories above. And in the master bedroom light entering through the gable-end clerestory filters through a ceiling of the custom-milled siding.

Ultimately, the house not only serves the basic needs of its residents, but also acts as a work of kinetic sculpture, an art piece that enriches their daily lives.

While the house’s cantilevered second story resonates with the other homes on the street in its simple gabled structure and traditional clapboard siding, the ground level is wrapped in a unique custom-milled rainscreen siding. The top edge of each board is beveled subtly at different angles to render varying degrees of shadow and permit various amounts of transparency across the facade. As the sun moves across the sky throughout the day, high to low through the seasons, and crisp to diffuse through atmospheric changes, so too will the house’s surfaces and spaces beyond change dramatically over time. In this way a photo-graphic (light-drawing) technique is activated by changes in the natural environment, uniting the clients’ interests and lifestyle in their home and site.

Amplification of the play of light on the built structure is pursued further inside the house. Above the living room a half-butterfly roof diffuses southern sunlight through a frosted glass clerestory and reflects it deep into the dining area. At the stairwell a dormer nestled in the gabled roof lights the tall column of space from three stories above. And in the master bedroom light entering through the gable-end clerestory filters through a ceiling of the custom-milled siding.

Ultimately, the house not only serves the basic needs of its residents, but also acts as a work of kinetic sculpture, an art piece that enriches their daily lives.

This 2-level house, referred to by its' Owner as his "tree house", is situated in a dense grove of pines and hollies with a view of the bay from the second level.

The approach by a raised wooden walkway arrives at a walled deck and glass entrance. Two guest bedrooms, bath and guest deck are on the first floor with a steel stair leading to the living, dining, kitchen and Master Suite on the second floor.

All exterior and interior wall surfaces and cabinets are rough cut cypress; the flooring is bleached oak. The ceilings are exposed fir structural members and doors and windows are aluminum. The 1" X 12" cypress vertical louvers on the high windows reduce the intensity of the southern sun. The east and west walls of the house are virtually blank because of the close proximity of the neighbors and a public walkway.

The design of this 1200 sq. ft. residence for a writer was a study in adaptability and re-use. The client was looking to simplify her life and downsize from an earlier house done by this firm. The new house would be built just west of her existing house on the adjacent property. She voiced the desire for her new house to be functional, light, informal, simple and maintain a view of a large moss covered rock on the site.

The house was designed to be both spatially and economically efficient by coordinating the assembly of pre-manufactured components researched over the Internet. It is essentially one large room with ancillary spaces that feed off it. The structure is an adjustable cantilevering rack system used in lumberyards. It is comprised of standard steel sizes with an assortment of brackets and arms that can be specified for any type of load or application. Bolted connections secure the steel arms and brackets to the steel columns. From these appendages cabinetry is hung, a fireplace mantel is suspended and handrails are applied. They also support the mahogany bookshelves and the walkway around the perimeter of the library.

Prefabricated concrete foundation walls, formaldehyde free water-resistant fiber board, rough sawn okoume wood, aluminum windows, dyed concrete wall panels, pre-assembled wood screens, cabinets from IKEA and gabion retaining walls are the other elements that come together to form the house.

Nothing in the house is excessive. Only what is needed is what has been provided for. The house’s ability to be adapted and retrofitted, expanded or reduced allows for a multiplicity of uses and to do so without waste is implicit in the design.

By employing a system of deep timber beams spaced six feet apart, the floor framing no longer depends directly on the exterior walls for support. The solid floor and ceiling may be held-back at the edges to open an uninterrupted cavity from the first floor through the roof. This cavity is lined with white reflective metal road sign blanks and made translucent to the sky and interior spaces through a diffusive plane of clear corrugated polycarbonate. Light reflects off the roof deck’s metal planking, through the polycarbonate plane into the light cavity, off the road sign blanks, and into the house’s interior spaces.

Traditionally development in Catskill Park has taken place adjacent to waterways and existing transportation corridors. Since this project sits inside a relatively undisturbed tract, special environmental care is taken. Moss-coated boulders strewn across the hillside are piled like riprap against the graded slopes to either side of the parking area to protect against erosion; hemlocks cleared for the road and building site are recycled into siding at a local mill; and the light cavities double for natural convective cooling in the summertime: cool air draws below, warms by solar radiation, rises to the top, and exhausts through manually-regulated louvers. Along with the “solar tube” daylighting, these systems unite harmoniously with the natural setting to satisfy the owners’ aspirations for “simplicity, functionality, warmth, and soul”.

Project Narrative Forthcoming

hurricane prone with high force winds, were studied. Most are made from a light gauge metal folded to add strength and rigidity. For our case the panels were to be exposed and used for more than just a hidden structural component. A standard light gauge 4x8 steel sheet was folded back and forth along the long axis adding the same strength and rigidity to the panel. The resulting 2’ panel locks into adjacent panels and is a structural shear and bearing assembly, as well as a decorative furniture component.

The new structural panels multitask throughout the addition. The solid steel transitions to a perforated panel that baffles the sunlight over windows and doors. The light quality varies throughout the day as light levels transition through the overlapped perforations. Fins that protrude from the wall panels are laser cut to accept shelving, seating and countertops. The same perforated steel becomes the dining room chandelier, and the platform for the stair and desk. This one material is exhausted in its possible uses throughout the house, minimizing the necessity for additional components that require wasteful shipping and packaging. The secondary infill material is used through both structures, on the floors, walls and ceilings to unify the old and the new.

Using new technologies to fabricate customized panels from a standard product accomplishes several things: less material is necessary to achieve greater structural strength, multiple programs can be integrated into one material, waste is minimized resulting in a more effective approach to sustainability, and the dialogue between the existing and new structural systems elevates the experience of inhabiting the space.

To accommodate the extensive program spaces are nested within one another. Operable partitions pull out from the walls of the living room, carving out a media room within the living room when privacy is desired. Conversely, with the partitions open, the media room merges with the living room for large gatherings. The thickness of the wall separating the dining room and kitchen is also cut away, utilizing its depth to accommodate a wine rack that also functions as a light fixture.

The process of carving is applied at the material and detail level as well. The 5/8” corten steel plate that clads the base of the house is waterjet cut into a delicate pattern that defies its mass. Inside, corian is employed for the ease with which it can be milled. Corian countertops are cut to form towel bars, bunk bed frames are carved to create ladders, cabinet doors are recessed to form handles, and wainscoting is subtly etched with meaningful words chosen by the clients.

Materials were chosen not only for their workability, but also for their durability in the coastal environment. Corten steel siding is zero maintenance despite being relentlessly sandblasted by the wind. Cedar siding and screens are finished using a Victorian technique in which the iron sulfate in a blend of white vinegar and iron filings reacts with the tannins in wood, creating an ebony finish that penetrates through the material and will not require refinishing. The lack of harsh stains or finishes reduces the ecological footprint of the house. Geothermal heating and cooling as well as vegetated roofs further reduce the environmental impact.

Using the design approach of sculpting away rather than building up, the house is pared down until the experience of the extraordinary site is dominant.

To accommodate the extensive program spaces are nested within one another. Operable partitions pull out from the walls of the living room, carving out a media room within the living room when privacy is desired. Conversely, with the partitions open, the media room merges with the living room for large gatherings. The thickness of the wall separating the dining room and kitchen is also cut away, utilizing its depth to accommodate a wine rack that also functions as a light fixture.

The process of carving is applied at the material and detail level as well. The 5/8” corten steel plate that clads the base of the house is waterjet cut into a delicate pattern that defies its mass. Inside, corian is employed for the ease with which it can be milled. Corian countertops are cut to form towel bars, bunk bed frames are carved to create ladders, cabinet doors are recessed to form handles, and wainscoting is subtly etched with meaningful words chosen by the clients.

Materials were chosen not only for their workability, but also for their durability in the coastal environment. Corten steel siding is zero maintenance despite being relentlessly sandblasted by the wind. Cedar siding and screens are finished using a Victorian technique in which the iron sulfate in a blend of white vinegar and iron filings reacts with the tannins in wood, creating an ebony finish that penetrates through the material and will not require refinishing. The lack of harsh stains or finishes reduces the ecological footprint of the house. Geothermal heating and cooling as well as vegetated roofs further reduce the environmental impact.

Using the design approach of sculpting away rather than building up, the house is pared down until the experience of the extraordinary site is dominant.

Project Narrative Forthcoming