“There’s a dusty silver shingle language and material, a lot of times kind of agricultural,” Lisa says. “The light is magical and strong and changes quickly. You see weather coming in. These shingled buildings are a perfect reflector of that weather and landscape.” Traditional Cape Cod houses also have white trim and corner boards that outline the house, probably because paint was required to maintain those architectural elements, she says. “There was a technical reason for these drops of white on the buildings. We have very different technological abilities and sealants available now.”

This summer house in Orleans, on Cape Cod, engages with all those muses. Owned by a couple with twins, it looks due east across the Atlantic on a swell of land that has been in the client’s family for about a hundred years. He had built a Shingle-Style summer house there in the early 2000s, before he met his husband. Smaller with a big roof and conventional builder details, it had double-hung windows and a large gathering space with a fireplace. After their son and daughter arrived, the couple was seeking more privacy with the addition of a separate guest area. Building on the history of the site and house, their goal was to make a bigger, more permanent place for their family. 

For Lisa and Alan, it was an opportunity to take the existing house in a more dynamic direction while preserving the financial investment, materials, and memories that the building already embodied. “It felt to us as though there was a built-in underpinning or awareness of the history of Cape Cod and the family’s love of this magical place,” she says. “They really wanted the house to feel like it was part of old Cape Cod vernacular, with huge roof forms and stark gable forms against the sky, and then also Modernist, with large panes of glass. We thought hard about the architectural history of that place, and the project developed from that.”

Shingle Minded

Occupying a 19th-century brick warehouse that holds their studio and JIG DesignBuild workshop, GOA is deeply interested in technology and craft. Their experiments in carving, casting, stacking, and laminating all inform their design work, which they describe as “thinking through making.” That approach was familiar to both clients—one leads design for a major global retail brand and the other manages design for a well-known exercise company. “They got things quickly and their opinions were fantastic,” says Lisa.

Another tenet of the firm’s work is creative reuse and adaptation to combat construction’s environmental toll. Here they kept the original foundation, roof ridge, and as much of the framing as they could, donating materials that could not be reused. The long axis of the bar-shaped house is oriented north-south, and an existing garage bumps out on the north. 

Preserving the foundation and roof ridge meant that the house’s width and height were pretty much set, though the roof forms were enlarged and the foundations were surgically extended to the south, west, and north to get the footprint they needed. Public spaces along the main floor plan face east toward the Atlantic Ocean. At the west-facing entryway, a fireplace wall hides the dining room behind it. To the right is the living room; it shares a fireplace wall with the screened porch that extends into the backyard. To the left of the entry is the kitchen with a lounge area, plus a powder room and a kids’ bath.

Extending the house by 30 feet on the north made room for two kids’ bedrooms. Where the land falls away, this addition rests on a plinth and a trio of canted steel columns, forming a bridge with a carport and service zone below. A large glass monitor in the kids’ volume created an expansion point under the widened roofline. It echoes a giant monitor in the second-floor primary suite and another on the above-garage guest quarters, which has its own covered entrance off the front porch. 

With its deep, angular roof, the two-bedroom guest suite reads as a separate building. “Cape Cod has little compounds, usually old barns,” Lisa says. “We wanted a collection of smaller forms, so it feels a bit villagey. We kept some of the roof forms but had to creatively create space by adding big dormers.” In a twist on form following function, the strong silhouettes evoke the familiar sight of roofscapes pressed against the sky. “It’s hard to overstate how aware you are of the sky when you’re on Cape Cod,” Lisa says. “It’s a really windswept, narrow spit of land way out in the Atlantic. The reading of buildings against the sky is an important experience. We had the opportunity to make shaved or refractive forms against the sky.”

The meticulous application of shingle cladding renders them as taut, abstract forms. The shingles come together in a miter joint at the corners, and their 2-inch overlap minimizes surface interruptions. “There’s not meant to be any architectural pointing out of these joints,” Lisa says. “To get that done technically required incredibly good craftsmanship, and we were fortunate to have had a crackerjack builder, Cregg Sweeney.” 

Its aesthetic subtlety belies the rigor required to achieve this effect. “The exterior is all Alaskan yellow cedar shingles, which overlap in alternating fashion going up the corner,” Cregg says. “Taking the shingles up and around and across the roof required us to bring all the levels of shingling up at the same time, to align all four sides and wrap it over the roof. That was definitely a process.” At the top of the canted chimneys, a zinc-coated, louvered air intake echoes the shingle dimensions.

Tucked In

The interiors play to Cape Cod’s distinctive light. A broad front door floats between large glass panels that admit views through the house to the Atlantic. Along the back, pocketing lift/slide doors, ranging from 10 to 15 feet wide, open the living room, dining room, and TV room to a terrace that runs the length of the house. Pyramidal ceilings in the dining room and living room are awash in light from conventional skylights installed to hide the frame. “What we like to do, especially in this pyramidal ceiling form we made here, is to bring the sheetrock inboard of the skylight frame, so you can’t even really tell there’s glass there,” Lisa says. “This gives the room an abstract quality of light and hides all the bells and whistles you need to put skylights in.”

Lined in maple hardwood paneling and casework and hickory floors, the interior feels warm and bright. The architects preserved the dining room’s existing brick fireplace but parged it with white cement and added a black cleft slate hearth. In the living room they designed a board-formed concrete fireplace that shares a chimney with a fireplace in the enlarged screened porch.

Furnishings are integral to the floor plans and fit-outs. While the architects don’t always design furniture for projects, they do draw up furniture plans early on to determine the most comfortable places for clients to sit and what they will see from those vantage points. In this case, the firm designed and fabricated the outdoor cypress benches and an indoor dining table that’s paired with Carl Hansen chairs. Their design for the colorful Carl Hansen chair cushions in the TV room was inspired by a trip to Japan. “Alan and I had done a project there and were seeing all these really thin mats put onto chairs and surfaces, adding different layers,” Lisa says. The orange patterned mats are part of a playful color palette that included the kids’ rooms, where alcoves snugged into the roof slope are lacquered in teal, yellow, pale blue, and gray. “It’s a modern eclectic vibe; we were interested in some color and not all one period of furniture,” she says. “The clients had a lot of fun with this conversation too. What will be comfortable, a bit unexpected, and bring life to different areas of the house?”

Tucked inside its wide roof, the primary suite is the sole second-story space, giving it the gift of privacy and views. On the gable end, the Zen-like bathroom is meant to feel weathered. A wall of painted, pre-weathered cedar provides a dark tonal contrast to the maple vanity and teak shower floor, which extends to an outdoor shower that looks out over the pool and ocean. Thin strips of marble in a syncopated pattern lend a reflective surface behind the vanity. “It was complicated dimensionally to get everything under the existing roof height,” Lisa says. The winding, skylit stairwell has a secret quality, she adds. “When you finally get upstairs, there’s a real privacy to the space.” 

Design work continued outdoors, where a tall, board-formed concrete retaining wall makes a level surface for the pool and lawn—a place for the twins to run around and kick a ball. Stepping stones across the pool lead to a seating area and firepit. Supported from below on stilts, the platform sits among scrub pines and provides long views of the ocean and Cape Cod’s quintessential beauty. 

“The clients are exacting people and have a great design eye; they seem to use every bit of the house and love entertaining here,” Lisa says. “When the house was pretty well along, the client commented, ‘I think you guys are working toward a new Modernist vernacular for Cape Cod.’ It was good to hear it was landing in a way that the house felt settled and was talking to its neighbors but not trying to reiterate the older houses around it.” Indeed, while the design honors the history and meaning of the site, it is also a poetic expression of how vernacular buildings can quietly change over time, without losing their sense of place. 

Nauset Beach House 

Orleans, Massachusetts

Architect: Elizabeth Gray, FAIA, principal in charge; Alan Organschi, principal in charge; Parker Lee, design director; Jack Wolfe, project manager, GOA Architecture, New Haven, Connecticut 

Builder: Cregg Sweeney, LLC, Orleans, Massachusetts

Furniture: Dan Kazer, fabrication director, JIG, GOA

Structural engineer: Jacobson Structures, Deep River, Connecticut

Civil engineer: Ryder & Wilcox, South Orleans, Massachusetts

Landscape: Crossroads Landscape & Pools, Orleans

Project size: 4,500 square feet

Site size: 0.62 acre

Construction cost: Withheld

Photography: David Sundberg/ESTO

Key Products

Cabinetry: Maple

Cladding: Alaskan yellow cedar shingles

Cooking vent hood: Sirius Range Hoods

Cooktop: Miele

Dishwasher: Bosch

Dishwasher drawer: Fisher & Paykel

Entry doors: Artisan Builders / D-Line

Exterior lighting: WAC, Bega

Faucets: Dornbracht

Fireplace: Board-formed concrete

Flooring: Hickory

Grill, built-in: Röshults

Hardware, cabinetry: Integrated finger pulls

Icemaker: Sub-Zero

Interior lighting: Sonneman, Lightexture, Lightyears, Bover, OVUUD, David Weeks, Big Ass Fans

Lighting control: Lutron

Millwork and trim: Fry Reglet

Ovens: Miele

Passage doors: d line

Refrigerator: Sub-Zero

Roofing: Alaskan yellow cedar shingles

Sinks: Kohler, Nameeks

Toilets: Duravit

Tubs: Kohler

Washer/dryer: LG

Window wall systems: Quantum Windows & Doors

Windows: LAMILUX

The post Case Study: Nauset Beach House by GOA Architecture appeared first on Residential Design.

Simple as a child’s drawing, it sits on rolling terrain overlooking the town of Overbrook, in the Tallgrass Prairie region of eastern Kansas. The land is dotted with broken limestone, much of it containing fossils of sea creatures from the inland sea that covered this area eons ago. Built plainly out of southern yellow pine and corrugated metal siding, the structure was solid but not square. To support the insertion of a bedroom, bath, loft, kitchen, and dining/living area, builders Delaney Moore and Caleb Aldrich added shims and horizontal blocking, creating a frame-within-a-frame, and then lined the walls with plywood. “We made a decision that we wouldn’t cut any of the primary frame members,” says Steve, FAIA. “The window sizes had to fit within the stud spacing. Originally, we intended to have larger windows on the north, but this is tornado alley; we wanted the building to be as stiff as possible.”

Twenty feet wide and 24 feet long, the barn had a slatted crib wall that divided the interior in half lengthwise along its east-west axis. This lightweight wall also drew a line between two different types of construction. “The south half had sliding barn doors on the west and east and a dirt floor for trucks to drive through and deliver hay,” Steve says. “The north half had a concrete floor used primarily for corn storage, but also animals. That half also had 24-inch stud spacing and 1×6 yellow pine sheathing that ran horizontally, which made the north half stiffer. The south half had 4-foot stud spacings, like it was used simply for weather protection.”

Every inch of this modest building was used to make comfortable living quarters. An open living room and dining nook now occupy the south half of the old barn. Removing parts of the crib wall, the architect created two doorways to the northern half, which contains a kitchen and bedroom with a bath between them. The two new walls subdividing this section also support a loft deck made of salvaged yellow pine timbers. Accessed from a ladder in the living room, it is just big enough for a queen-sized bed.

Humble Ply

For two people who like to cook and entertain, a functional kitchen with full-size appliances was priority. The west half of the roughly 4-by-9-foot kitchen contains a sink and dishwasher and a set of deep drawers. A compact European washer/dryer is stacked on the south side with a set of deep drawers above, and the east wall contains pantry drawers and a combination high-speed convection and microwave oven. The east side of the kitchen also has an Italian four-burner gas range, countertop, and refrigerator. “It’s ergonomic and easy to use—a powerful little kitchen,” Steve says.

Aside from some fancy appliances, the interior finishes are rudimentary or recycled. “Initially the plywood was to be a substrate for live-edge pine planks we expected to have, but the ply was so beautiful and simple we decided to just stop at that point,” Steve says. “We used southern yellow pine everywhere, including on the floor, to keep the tradition alive.” One exception is the kitchen and bathroom casework, which is made of Baltic birch plywood. A family friend, Navid Jones, built the dining nook out of cherry wood from a felled tree on the couple’s city property. And most of the bathroom surfaces came from Recycled Surfaces, a business Steve used to own. The countertops, floor, and shower walls are clad in a combination of recycled glass and porcelain.  

The exterior, too, retains its beautifully utilitarian flavor. Silvery blue with a polka dot–patterned patina, the original corrugated metal siding looks like something you might see on a building in Marfa’s West Texas landscape. That and the original roof were left intact, although a new Cor-Ten roof floats on sleepers above the old one. A year after construction ended, Steve added front and back porches, along with dry-stacked stone walls to level the ground around the house. “I watched Andy Goldsworthy build walls in an art project at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and decided I could emulate what his crew was doing,” Steve says. “I had all this rock that was dug up when we were excavating for the sewage lagoon. I spent the summer stacking those walls and had a neighboring farmer backfill it. A year later I put all the paving stone down.” He also built window shutters from charred planking—a riff on the antique sliding doors still in place.

Light Touch

Doors and windows provide natural ventilation, but heat comes from mini-splits and a radiant concrete floor. “It was a challenge, but a lot of fun, to work around existing conditions and keep the building discreet, not flashy,” says builder Delaney. “After installing a vapor barrier and closed cell foam insulation, we hand-poured a new concrete floor, spreading it on top of the existing concrete, which created a thermal mass for heat retention.” The couple hopes to achieve net-zero energy consumption with the future addition of solar panels.

Where to run plumbing and mechanicals presented another hurdle. “Steve was brilliant with the design and drawings, but getting it all to work out logistically was a fascinating process,” says Caleb. “We cut channels in the cement pad for the plumbing and ran the electrical in the few walls we had available.”

Near the cottage, an original 1860 dry-stack limestone cellar  house—the couple dubbed it Underbrook—had been restored by previous owners. Steve added a door and window, and Caleb installed a limestone floor. “We stayed in it one night during a tornado alert,” Steve says, “but we’re trying to figure out options for adding more people; this is an interesting place to hang out for a day or so. I built the cottage’s couch and ladder so was planning to build a pair of same-design couches to sleep on. But we have a humidity issue in the hut, so we’re worried about fabrics. We’ve also designed container houses; a friend is thinking about moving to our farm in a container house south of the cellar.”

Indeed, the Overlook is well used. Steve’s family is there most weekends and holidays, whether to tend the large vegetable garden or just escape from the city. “We’re surprised by how much respite it provides. Last Saturday there were coyotes howling all night long, and it’s a whole different community of folks here,” Steve says. For this family, visits to the old farmstead keep the urban scene from feeling stale. And with its sensitive embrace of old and new, the house tells a story about Overbrook’s agricultural past.

Overbrook Overlook

Overbrook, Kansas

Architect: Steve McDowell, FAIA, BNIM, principal in charge, Kansas City, Missouri

Builder: Delaney Moore and Caleb Aldrich, dmrtisans, Kansas City, Kansas

Color/design collaborator: Beena Ramaswami, BNIM

Mechanical engineer: Tom Simpson, Introba, Kansas City, Kansas

Structural engineer: Trevor Acorn, Walter P. Moore Co., Kansas City, Missouri

Project size: 702 square feet

Site size: 78 acres

Construction cost: $242 a square foot

Photography: Kelly Callewaert

Key Products

Cabinetry: Custom Baltic birch ply by Sheldon Vogt

Ceiling fans: Ball, Modern Fan Company

Cooking ventilation: Bertazzoni

Cooktop or Range: Bertazzoni

Countertop: Recycled Surfaces 

Dishwasher: Bosch

Entry Doors, hardware, locksets: H Window

Fasteners: Spax

Faucets: Grohe

Finish Materials: Sanded ACX pine plywood from New Zealand

HVAC Systems: Carrier Mini Split, Warm Tiles Electric Radiant System

Insulation: Kansas Spray Foam

Lighting: Halo, Ikea

Outdoor grill: Big Green Egg

Ovens: GE Advantium

Paints, stains, coatings: Johnson Paste Wax

Passage doors: Menards yellow pine, Zoro hardware

Refrigerator: GE

Shower enclosure: Delta

Sinks: Kraus, EAGO

Tankless water heater: Takagi

Toilet: Dual flush Glacier Bay

Washer/dryer: Bosch

The post Case Study: Overbrook Overlook by BNIM appeared first on Residential Design.

The aptly named Double Island, one of tens of thousands in this bay that form the world’s largest freshwater archipelago, looks like a pair of lungs connected by a slim bridge of land. The Toronto-based clients purchased the island with the intention of renovating and expanding the house that stood there. Given the difficulties of barging building materials to this remote destination, Superkül was a natural choice for the project. Although the firm’s portfolio ranges from single-family homes to high-rise buildings, they especially appreciate the challenges of keeping as much of the structure as they can on adaptive reuse and renovation projects. 

“The first phase was probably the most challenging,” says partner Andre D’Elia, FRAIC.  “It would have been easier if it was a new build, and it would have been a different house. Existing conditions are both a constraint and an opportunity—you develop a creative response. How do we give this building new life? It’s more about doing interventions and keeping the character and soul of the original project. It’s challenging in that respect; there’s always a surprise when you peel back the layers.”

Edge Condition

One aspect that did give the architects full creative license was the addition of a primary suite. After exploring several expansion schemes that grew from the house’s awkward geometries, the architects abandoned that approach. They drew a linear pavilion that essentially stands on its own but tucks under a roof on the house’s east side. “We wanted to create a pavilion that lightly touched the house and hovered over the rock, oriented to the sun,” Andre says. After considering the whole landscape, “we said, this is what we need to do. We sent the clients a hand sketch, and they said, “Oh my god, yes!’”

Resting on slender piers, the pavilion is reached through a glass-enclosed bridge from the main living space. Its “box-within-a-box” design allows it to be experienced as a world unto itself, a platform from which to observe, unimpeded, the movement of sun, clouds, and storms. Floating within the steel and glass structure are white-oak-lined compartments for sleeping, bathing, and dressing, with the bedroom facing south and the en-suite bathroom and concrete freestanding bathtub facing east. Floors and ceilings cantilever beyond the wooden core, creating a clear, clean edge that keeps the focus on the sweep of landscape.

The architects saw the rectilinear design as both an antidote and complement to the angular architecture of the original structure. On both volumes, new oversized glazing shares a datum line that ties the structures together, while the pavilion’s simplicity is a foil for the cottage’s geometric complexity. “Generative juxtapositions of this kind were key to the overall architectural design,” the architects wrote. “Whereas the main cottage is clad in concrete masonry blocks that express a visual gravitational pull down toward the rock, the addition appears to levitate while the glazed link opens up entirely on both sides to create a breezeway and multiple access points into the home. Together, the two structures convey a simultaneous experience of solidity and ethereality, durability and permeability, being inside and outside.”

It’s no coincidence that the design also introduces wind and sun breaks on this extreme site. “The pavilion ties into the house, creating outdoor courtyards or shelter areas” on the south and north, Andre says. “The bridge piece that links the house with the pavilion has doors that open on both sides, so if it’s too hot on the south, they can move to the shady area on the north side, and if it’s too windy, they can get a break from the wind on the opposite patio. We wanted to keep those active uses prominent in the design.”

Breathing Room

One of the renovation goals was to accommodate visiting siblings, children, and grandchildren. The gut remodel included removing partitions, inserting larger windows, and reshaping parts of the roof to open the insular interiors. They also bumped out the footprint on the east side of the main level, near the entrance, to add a bedroom facing the water.

“We wanted to create a more unified ceiling and roof structure,” Andre says. “There were columns coming down in awkward places on the floor plan. We removed those columns and introduced steel beams to replace some of the roof structure, simplifying parts of the roof around the main entrance and liberating the main living space.”

From the entryway, a stairway on the right leads to an existing loft, now used as a TV room and office, where the roof was raised and a window added on the north side. Straight ahead, the cathedralized living space was redesigned for entertaining and views of the rocky coastline. 

The water-facing dining room on the right sits a few steps above the open kitchen and living room. Removing partitions doubled the size of the dining room, now lit with operable skylights that, along with sliding glass doors, admit cooling cross breezes. Originally, part of the dining room was sectioned to create an inglenook for the see-through fireplace between the living and dining rooms. Filling in the fireplace on the dining side and removing the walls around it simplified and opened the room’s footprint. And redesigning the wide steps between the kitchen and dining area established an informal gathering spot where grandkids can sit or play while someone is making dinner. 

“This was their oasis; they wanted to be really immersed in nature,” Andre says. The living room’s masonry walls were distilled to posts infilled with glass that takes in the landscape; small picture windows were exchanged for floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors. “It felt like the heavy roof above closed the whole thing,” Andre says. “We let it breathe a bit.”

They also raised the roof over the kitchen and removed partial walls that hemmed it in. In fact, everything in this house is new except for the concrete-block fireplace. The architects highlighted its monumental presence by exposing portions that were concealed and removing the soot. “It was a process of elimination for the fireplace,” Andre says. “The same thing with the roof. We cleaned up valleys and ridges, put a new cap on the fireplace chimney, and peeled back the roofline that partially covered it.” The entire project was a process of “preservation, subtraction, and immersion” to honor aspects of the home’s core personality, minimize unnecessary waste, and reduce the number of barge deliveries to this outer island—a journey of about 90 minutes from the mainland (though half that by boat).

The west side of the house received a new elevation with the removal of balconies and piers off the dining room and downstairs bedroom. Cutting back the dipping roofline and adding larger windows opened the northwest corner to outdoor views.  The design team also simplified the screened porch’s roofline on the southeast, behind the kitchen. Overall, “we kept the spirit of the roof but rationalized it,” Andre says. All this was done as surgically as possible by propping up the existing roof and reframing it, peeling back the layers to expose more spacious interiors. 

Downstairs are two guest bedrooms with a bath between them. Both were stripped and given larger windows. In the northwest bedroom that benefited from the streamlined elevation, a concrete block wall supporting part of the living room fireplace made a niche that the architects reclad in whitewashed knotty pine—the perfect spot for a houseguest’s suitcase. 

Soft Focus

The interior material palette imparts a sense of expansiveness in keeping with the vast natural landscape. A nod to the home’s original decor, whitewashed knotty pine figures prominently among the minimal finishes. In addition to lining the walls and ceilings of the secondary bedrooms, where it’s applied with a horizontal reveal, it also appears in the entryway and on the soaring kitchen and dining room wall, tying the two spaces together. Other ceilings and walls are skimmed in creamy plaster with a sandy stucco finish. “It softens the light and gives the ceiling a lot of depth because the microfines in the finish absorb light,” Andre says. 

Throughout, the casework is white oak. Adding to the soft-focus effect, the Bulthaup kitchen’s white laminate cabinets are paired with a mottled-gray porcelain backsplash that echoes the Georgian Bay rock and concrete block fireplace. “We tried to keep the palette very simple,” Andre says. “The only real color we have is behind the bathtub in the primary suite,” where handmade tiles supply a wavy pop of pattern facing the water.

Outside, a new steel roof resists the location’s high winds, and the concrete block was parged for uniformity between old and new. “The house had a lot of water damage from leaky windows,” Andre says. “These materials are just more durable.” The house is cooled passively through cross breezes and heated with a few in-floor baseboard units (an electrical cable on the lake floor supplies service to the island from the mainland). “The clients use the house from May to October and close it down in the winter,” Andre says. “In mid-April it still gets quite cold and sometimes there are still ice floes.” 

Bobcats were barged over to dig the septic system, and steel beams were erected with winches and chains, working from scaffolding. Given the frigid winter temperatures, construction on these islands is mostly limited to summer months; however, the crew arrived on snowmobiles to finish the interior over the winter. In a final move, the sand and gravel outside the house was scraped back to expose the rocky landscape. Gray-brown granite for the patios came from a nearby quarry and mirrors the rust-colored patterns in the island’s natural rock.

Together, the house and low-slung primary suite convey a sense of solidity and weightlessness. By recapturing interior headroom, enhancing passive ventilation, and creating transparency, the architects made the cottage more permeable to the amazing setting while increasing its durability in a daunting climate. “The clients really feel like it’s what they envisioned,” Andre says. “This is their oasis, and they wanted to feel like they’re outside. The client is always puttering in the landscape, building paths through the island, going for a swim. At night the house becomes a beacon for the island.” 

Double Island Cottage

Georgian Bay, Ontario

Architect: Andre D’Elia, partner in charge; Jennifer Esposito, project architect; Carly Kandrack, Janean Brühn, design team, Superkül, Toronto, Ontario

Builder: Moon Island Construction, Mactier, Ontario

Interior designer: Superkül

Structural engineer: Kieffer Structural Engineering, Toronto

Millwork: Chervin Kitchen & Bath, Port Carling, Ontario

Project size: 3,042 square feet

Site size: 5 acres

Construction cost: Withheld

Photography: Studio Shai Gil

Key Products

Cladding: Concrete masonry blocks

Cooktop: Gaggenau

Countertops: Caesarstone

Dishwasher: Gaggenau

Faucets: Brizo, Rubinet

Flooring: Moncer Flooring

Hardware: Hinge Hardware, Casson

Interior wall cladding: White-washed knotty pine

Kitchen: Bulthaup

Lighting: Herman Miller, Flos, Astro, Lambert & Fils, Peter Bowles, Liteline, DELTALIGHT, Artemide

Ovens: Gaggenau

Refrigerator: Gaggenau, Bosch

Sinks: Bosch, Blanco

Skylights: VELUX

Tiles: Stone Tile

Toilets: TOTO

Tub: Native Trails

Washer/dryer: Bosch

Windows and window wall systems: Schüco | Bigfoot Door

Wine refrigerator: Liebherr

The post Case Study: Double Island Cottage by Superkül appeared first on Residential Design.

Ship in a Bottle

Once a remote and forested area where the LaHave River estuary joins the North Atlantic Ocean, Upper Kingsburg traces its roots variously to native indigenous peoples, an outpost for early explorers, seasonal fishing settlements, and farmlands. Utilitarian structures are a component of its vernacular building traditions.

When the eighth Ghost gathering took place in 2006, the concept was to design and build a sizable studio and dining hall for the program. At 100-feet long, it was going to be the biggest and most commanding addition to the property, but it needed to derive its inspiration from the challenging climate and the modest origins of the place. An industrial agrarian building was a natural fit.

Brian also tapped a solution he had used for the 1999 Howard House, located on a similar waterfront, cliffside site. The “zoomorphic wedge” shape, as the firm calls it, aims its rising “head” toward the water views and its tapering “tail” toward the land. Given the constraints—budget, time, labor skills—Shobac is even more pared down in its expression than the private Howard House, and thus cleaves even closer to the firm’s goal of “an architecture in dialogue with the ordinariness of a particular place.”

Keeping the building simple was also a practical consideration, as it was to be built on a tight schedule and by hand with largely unskilled labor. “It was built in a week,” Brian recalls. “And those trusses were built in the air and done in a single day. By suppertime, the structure was up. No single piece could be more than 200 pounds. It was like building a boat in a bottle, with a ship’s hull geometry.”

“It’s passive solar, so it faces south and has a thermal mass concrete floor,” he adds. “There are high windows on the north side and big ones on the south for the Venturi effect. Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa said about our work that you can feel the forces of nature operating on you here. You can feel the climate—kind of like a weather station.”

One room deep with a 40-foot dining table at its center—the space served a variety of functions in its ensuing 17 years. Ghost participants gathered at the table for creative brainstorming and meals, Brian’s firm used it as a satellite office, and it functioned as a community space for events—the beating heart of the Shobac Campus.

The Homecoming

Over the years, Brian’s career and commissions have lured him all over the world. But this region has always called him back. His adult children also left for school and other experiences, but they found themselves called back here as well. Whether living and working nearby or on the mainland, Kingsburg is the family center—the homestead.

So it made sense to adapt the Shobac Studio into a home for Brian and his wife, a neuroscientist, and a locus—with that 40-foot-long table—for bringing family and friends together. Indeed, the project was a family affair, with son Matthew the project architect and daughter Renée the structural engineer.

In keeping with the firm’s belief in building just “enough house” and no more, the changes were executed with restraint. Small tweaks to the original structure include a new open deck, a reworked main entrance, and new storage and laundry facilities. A small sleeping alcove off the main living area and kitchen was retained; and an existing loft bedroom and bath is now the compact primary suite. “The alcove is the only place you don’t see the ocean,” says Brian.

Conjoining the lightly renovated double-height building is a new addition that continues the taper of the wedge shape. Viewed from overhead, you’d mistake it as a single entity, now extending 200 feet in length instead of 100 and terminating in a covered storage for firewood. From the broad sides, though, it’s obvious where the two pieces are stitched together.

The stick-built addition contains a pool, spa, and gym—ideal for keeping fit during hot summers and cold winters. “My wife wanted the pool,” Brian says. “She has always wanted a pool. She works as a stroke researcher and knows what happens when you don’t move your body.”

In the spirit of Shobac’s utopian village ideals, the new facility is available to the community, he says. And, at twice its original length, the building creates even more of a protected courtyard space in relation to the structures around it than it did before. “There’s something archetypical about that—something timeless,” he explains. “We often work with the space between buildings, like white space on a canvas.”

In transforming the Shobac Studio into his own home, the architect resisted padding it with luxurious finishes and flourishes. It merely extrudes the austerity of the original to encompass a few utilitarian amenities. Architect/critic Kenneth Frampton once called Brian’s work “banal,” he says, and he takes it as a compliment, “When you achieve the banal, it’s as if the building was always meant to be there.”

Original Building

Shobac Studio/Spa Extension

Upper Kingsburg, Nova Scotia

Architect: Brian MacKay-Lyons, FRAIC, FAIA, design lead; Matthew MacKay-Lyons, job captain, MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Builder: Axios Construction, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Structural Engineering: Renée MacKay-Lyons, Blackwell, Halifax

Mechanical and Electrical: M&R Engineering, Ltd., Halifax

Project Size: Studio and spa, 3,600 square feet; spa extension only, 1,500 square feet

Construction cost: Withheld

Photography: Matthew MacKay-Lyons

Key Products

Cladding/Roofing: Corrugated Galvalume

Decking: Hemlock

Finish materials: Cedar shiplap (pool area, sauna, bench); drywall (pool area, gym, washroom); slate tile (steam shower)

Flooring: Slate tile (pool deck, entry, steam shower, washroom); rubber floor (gym)

HVAC: Lifebreath HRV; Solstice air-to-water heat pump; radiant infloor, Price electric duct heater; Harvia (sauna heater)

Humidity Control: Desert Aire (pool dehumidication unit)

Insulation: Rockwool; XPS rigid insulation 

Lighting: RAB

Millwork/Trim: Cedar Shiplap

Windows: Aluminum

The post Case Study: Shobac Studio / Spa Extension by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple appeared first on Residential Design.

They walked all seven lots, but the most intriguing one wasn’t for sale, the architect recalls. The owners had laid down some red rock gravel to suggest a building pad on a steep slope between 400-year-old, telescoping junipers that framed the much-photographed Cathedral Rock in the distance. 

“It has a Mount Fuji-esque presence in the valley,” says Wendell Burnette, FAIA. “At reverse sunset you can’t help but look at it. Here in the West we look to the East to see what’s lighting up in the cliffs. The telescoping rows of junipers told us just what to do.” Luckily for the clients, the owners had taken it off the market some months earlier but were eager to sell this steep “sleeper” plot, which also turned out to be the least expensive of those on offer. 

It presented just the kind of constraints that energize Wendell’s work. The three years he spent at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and his subsequent work with his mentor, Will Bruder, FAIA, instilled an appreciation for highly crafted buildings that meld with the landscape. In this case, the budget and site dictated a compact, resource-efficient house—just 1,600 square feet—that occupies the plot’s sweet spot.

Long Division

Aligning with the right-of-way protected view shed, the house is an east-west-facing bar that acts as an old-fashioned telescope trained on Cathedral Rock. Situated on the property’s high point, the house is 72-feet-long-by-21-feet-wide at its narrowest on the west, widening in 21/2-inch increments to 23 feet in the open kitchen/dining/living room that faces the mountain view. 

Even the long elevations have studied apertures that amplify the views of this stunning desert terrain, with its geological forms and striations and ever-changing hues. The entry side of the house on the west contains a carport, where a horizontal window slot frames a windshield-level slice of landscape. Six inches above the carport is the foyer—or “genkan,” as Wendell calls it—where a minimalist bench for removing shoes extends outside to form a seating wall in the entry courtyard. 

Inside, a central corridor lies on axis with the view of Cathedral Rock. Moving toward that view, it bisects three bedrooms on the south and two bathrooms and a laundry on the north before stepping up and out to the taller main living space with its giant window and mullion aligned with a gap in Cathedral Rock. The yacht-like, 9-foot-by-10-foot bedrooms (excluding the entry and closets) have a built-in desk and a horizontal window that provides a panorama of the cottonwoods and sycamores along Oak Creek, while the bathrooms on the opposite side of the hallway have higher windows for privacy that look up to the hills above the house.

Surrounded by trees, the building’s weathering steel skin seems to grow out of the reddish soil. “Cathedral Rock’s geology is hematite, which is rust,” Wendell says. The artful wrapping consists of standard size Cor-Ten sheets that overlap along the roof’s downslope and fold down on the north and south elevations to create full-height flashings. 

Given the remote location and the complexity of the angles, miters, and blind welds of the ¼-inch steel plate door and window frames, Phoenix-based builder Mark McCulloch made mockups and construction drawings on-site before having them fabricated in Phoenix. “There are no exposed fasteners anywhere on the house,” says Mark, who lived on-site in a camper van during construction. “We ended up turning the carport into a makeshift shop, doing the rough cuts for the interior panels in Phoenix and the final cuts at the house.” 

Along with steel plate windows, the Cor-Ten makes the building virtually fireproof. And its folds create shadow lines that not only help the house recede into the land but also evoke the respite of shade in a region with powerful sunlight. “We have this idea, doing houses in the desert, that it’s very comforting to work with shadow finishes,” Wendell says.  

Dark Shadows

That idea carries through to the monochromatic interior, whose floors, wall, and most of the ceilings are encased in compressed sawdust panels with a black pigment. “The interior is essentially a cabinet that fits into this Cor-Ten shell,” the architect says. Some panels are waxed and buffed, while those in wet areas are lacquered. Laid out in modules that step out toward the view at ¾-inch increments, these noir planes form concentric rectangles in the widening hallway and are highlighted when reverse sunsets throw the edges into relief. In the absence of door handles, diminutive lights in the hallway floor indicate where to push. “The dark tube pulls the view toward you,” Wendell says, culminating in “this large urban room like a Manhattan apartment, but in this landscape.”

While the kitchen is part of that “urban room,” it sits a few steps lower at the hallway level, and a raised countertop hides the sink from view. There, a perforated weathering steel side door opens to an exterior stair leading to the lower-level game room. Meticulously fitted out with a pellet stove, Irori Japanese-style fire table, and custom furniture including an L-shaped sofa/daybed and a glass-topped dining table that reflects the sky, the main living space also incorporates a movie screen that descends from the ceiling on cables. The screen is designed to float symmetrically within the window frame. In phase two, the glass will slide sideways out of view into a frame, making the living room feel like a balcony.

Even without a movie playing, “the main room is like a home theater,” Wendell says. “By day it’s about the landscape; it’s comforting to look out at it from a dim atmosphere.” To control sunlight on that east-facing telescope window during the day, a black automated shade screen rolls down in the morning and retracts at solar noon. It can be left open in winter to capture early morning sun. “It is 97 percent solid, and yet you can see the silhouette of the Sedona mountain landscape through it,” Wendell says.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the lighting plan incorporates shielded ¾-inch iGuzzini fixtures—“the most minimal light fixtures I know,” Wendell says. They’re typically dimmed to about 10 percent, a level he says provides ample but subtle light. “The surprise is that in this dark sky community, if a white room was lit, it would stand out like a supernova. Because of the dark finishes, you can sit in the room with the lights off and see the Milky Way on a moonless night. The ceiling and walls become the sky; you’re floating in this dark valley within these dark finishes.” 

For now, the couple plans to enjoy the house—along with the many hiking and biking trails within walking distance—every few months for several weeks at a time and rent it out as an Airbnb between stays. With its low-maintenance finishes and atmospheric embrace, the house suits both uses. 

“Although they didn’t overtly talk about it, part of what they wanted was to create an experience that competes in a vacation rental market that’s very competitive,” Wendell says. “I believe architecture has the ability to communicate at a visceral level and create a memorable experience, whether it’s a public building or a private residence designed to be a mini-DIY hotel. It’s highly specific to its spot on the planet. Given that we can be everywhere via our phones, I feel like luxury is being able to be here and now.” 

Telescope House

Sedona, Arizona

Architect: Wendell Burnette, FAIA, principal in charge; Brandan Siebrecht, project lead; Jared Abraham; Joby Dutton; Wendell Burnette Architects, Phoenix, Arizona

Builder and custom fabricator: Mark McCulloch, Roots Design Build, Phoenix

Interior designer: Wendell Burnette, Phoenix

Landscape architect: Arterra, Phoenix

Structural engineer: Rudow + Berry, Scottsdale, Arizona

Mechanical engineer: EKR Heating and Cooling, Glendale, Arizonia

Electrical engineer: Woodward Engineering, Tempe, Arizona

Lighting designer: Creative Designs in Lighting, Scottsdale, Arizona

Project size: 1,600 square feet

Site size: 1.13 acres

Construction cost: $900 per square foot

Photography: Jason Roehner

Key Products

Bedroom closet curtains: Holland & Sherry – Andes Mushroom

Cabinetry/Ceilings/Flooring/Wallboard: Interlam ForesColor MDF – Black

Cladding: Lapped Cor-Ten steel

Cooking vent hood: Miele

Cooktop: Samsung 30-inch induction

Countertops: Indian Premium Black Granite, Arizona Tile

Dishwasher: Bosch

Entry doors: Arcadia

Faucets: Kohler, Rotunda

Foundation: Concrete strip footing with masonry stem walls

Home theater: Da-Lite Wireline Advantage 

Indoor grill: Grillworks

Lighting control: Lutron

Lighting: Lumiere (exterior), iGuzzini Laser Blade XS

Oven: Frigidaire

Passage doors: FritsJurgens

Pellet stove: Regency GF40

Radiant heating: Schluter Ditra-Heat (bathroom floor)

Refrigerator: Sub-Zero

Roof truss system: TJI Joists

Roofing: Lapped Corten steel

Security system: ULTRALOQ

Showerhead: Delta Raincan

Sinks: Elkay, Kohler, Infinite Narrow

Sofa: Coda 2 Fabric

Toilets: Duravit

Window shading: Screen Innovations Outdoor Motorized Shade (living room)

Windows: Arcadia

The post Case Study: Telescope House by Wendell Burnette Architects appeared first on Residential Design.

That can be easier to accomplish when the design brief is basic and has only one person to please. A retired Boeing aerospace engineer and avid hiker, David’s client was moving full-time from Everett to Sultan, in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. He asked simply for a one-bedroom house with a great room, study, and large woodworking shop. 

In addition, he liked the idea of having an open-air courtyard where he could read and relax inside the building. “He wanted a house that was unusual, which is one reason he came to us,” David says. “A lot of our buildings use interesting geometries. I think it’s a great design device because it gives buildings a special character.” 

The bucolic setting on open pastureland inspired a house that gently directs views while providing cross-views through cutaways. Horses are part of the panorama. Most of the neighbors have horses, and there is a large equestrian center next door, and a wooded area to the east. In honor of the region’s timber heritage, “we decided to create a regular pattern of exposed beams and posts, and within that structure we started to carve out certain pieces to form the outdoor covered porches,” David says. “That led to the geometry that has two different grids overlaid.” 

The elevations are a composition in light and dark, form and void. “On the north entry side we wanted the form to be elemental and not compete with the field and mountains,” David says, “so we kept the palette very simple.” The primary cladding is cream-colored vertical tongue-in-groove cementitious boards placed 9 inches on center. “In the openings where we cut away to expose the post and beam structure, you can see where the hem-fir timbers appear as a natural wood tone,” he says. “The idea is that the outer skin is a simple element that wraps the entire building.” 

In contrast to the cementitious boards, dark-stained ebonized cedar defines the bedroom wing on the east as a distinct composition. It also lines the entry porch, continuing inside along the foyer wall. “These are themes we often play with in our projects—outer skin and inner skin,” David says. “In this case the inner skin is primarily glass—the cutaways. The tonal difference creates an interesting dynamic quality. On small buildings, these types of approaches help to enliven the building and give it a strong character and scale that can in a way compete with the scale of this giant open field.”

Angle of Repose

In addition to the entry porch, the twisted geometries result in two angular covered porches—one outside the great room on the southwest, the other spanning the study and workshop on the east, where morning sun rises over the trees. The north entry sequence lends itself to outdoor gathering. Visitors arrive to a gravel car court that stretches between a storage building and the house, where wide “sitting stairs” invite casual conversation. A wall extending from the house’s west elevation also defines this entry space while providing privacy from the road. 

“We created a hedgerow of about 50 trees along the road on the west side of the property,” David says, “and the wall creates a private outdoor area at the entry, enclosing a meditative garden and specimen tree.” 

Inside, a humble material palette balances the bold formal moves. White oak on the floors, living room window seat, and desks keep the interior light and airy, along with white IKEA kitchen cabinets and quartz countertops. The bath is treated similarly with a painted vanity, glazed oversized subway wall tile, and porcelain tile floor. Throughout, the ceiling’s 2-by-6-inch tongue-in-grove car decking and 6-by-10-inch hem-fir beams are exposed, expressing the roofline’s upward slope toward the mountains on the south. 

Within the floor plan, a small elevation change differentiates the living and sleeping areas while creating a crawl space for mechanicals and storage. Oriented southwest, the main-level great room captures the best views and sunsets. Open to the sky near the center of the room, a small, planted garden lends a sense of permeability, as does an oculus on the adjacent porch. “The idea was to create a framed view of the stars at night,” David says of the oculus. “During the day it creates an interesting shadow effect in the building.” 

Beyond the entryway is an ad-hoc exercise area, anchored by a bench and a storage wall that keeps the equipment out of sight. Up a few steps, a skylit corridor leads to the laundry room and woodworking shop on the left and the bedroom, bath, and study on the right, which face south toward the fields. 

Given the difficulty of getting the native grasses here to grow back after they’ve been disturbed, the team took great care to minimize the construction footprint. Indeed, the field comes right up to the house, as if the building has been there forever. Playful and energetic without being overly complex, the design emphasizes the house’s relationship with the outdoors. It reflects the architect’s preference for buildings that instill joy and the priorities of the owner after years of working in a city. 

“Belief in the significance of architecture is premised on the notion that we are, for better or for worse, different people in different places—and on the conviction that it is architecture’s task to render vivid to us who we might ideally be,” writes Alain de Botton in The Architecture of Happiness. While that’s a tall order for any dwelling, it’s not hard to imagine that Field House fulfills that sense for its owner. 

Field House

Sultan, Washington

Architect: David Coleman, FAIA, David Coleman Architecture, Seattle

Builder: SBI Construction, Seattle

Structural engineer: Gary Gill, Seattle

Project size: 2,750 square feet

Site size: 10 acres

Construction cost: $500 per square foot

Photography: Lara Swimmer

Key Products

Cabinetry: IKEA

Cabinetry hardware: Linnea

Cladding: Hardie Artisan Shiplap, western red cedar

Countertops: Caesarstone

Dishwasher: Bosch

Entry doors, hardware: Simpson, Inox

Faucets: Kohler

Finish materials: Surface Art wall tile

Flooring: Kentwood, ArcSurfaces porcelain (formerly Pental)

HVAC: Mitsubishi heat pump

Insulation: VaproShield

Lighting: Louis Poulsen, SONNEMAN

Millwork: Painted poplar

Paints and stains: Cabot T&G stain (exterior), Benjamin Moore Fiber Cement (interior)

Range: KitchenAid

Refrigerator: Liebherr

Roofing: Taylor Metal

Shower enclosure: C.R. Laurence

Shower faucets: Aquabrass

Sinks: Kohler, Presenza

Skylights: CrystaLite

Toilets: TOTO

Ventilation: Panasonic

Washer/dryer: Bosch

Windows: Sierra Pacific Windows

The post Case Study: Field House by David Coleman Architecture appeared first on Residential Design.

The other mix the firm has mastered is a blend of modern and traditional design that always feels familiar and fresh at the same time. It’s these qualities the clients on this second home project sought when they approached the firm with 160 scenic—but complicated—acres in Jackson Hole. “It is one of the most unusual sites that we’ve worked on,” says lead interior design partner Tim Pfeiffer. “The rarity of the site itself and the surroundings.” 

The typical second home lot in Jackson is about 10 acres, prepped and ready to build upon by a developer. The clients here had assembled their own untamed acreage, combining three large parcels along a winding river that branches into a myriad of meandering creeks and streams.

“The site is within a few hundred feet of the riverbank, and during the snowmelt in early spring, it’s right in the middle of the flood zone for the runoff,” explains Bryan Chilcote, an architecture principal at the firm. Nonetheless, proximity to the river was the entire point of the project for the clients, who are avid fly fishing enthusiasts. They just needed Hoedemaker Pfeiffer to solve the problem of that proximity.

There There

The river valley property is surrounded by mountains, but is otherwise flat and featureless, with no obvious location for a homestead. “The site was impossible to understand,” Steve recalls. “When I got there, the clients said ‘here’s a gator. Go drive around and decide where the house should go.’ But it was all river bottom, and there was no topography to it. It was just different plants of different sizes and different fields interwoven with bits of stream and creek. 

“I finally went into the middle of a hayfield that had those giant round hay bales and started standing on the bales and looking around—trying to understand what it would mean to build a house that wasn’t just sitting all the way down along the bottom,” he continues. As it happens, the 6-foot-tall hay bale revealed the perfect height to raise the house to—at once above the spring runoff and just elevated enough to create a sense of place within the vastness of the surroundings. 

While hoisting the house was the answer, the goal was still a home that was modest in scale and low-slung—to keep it from dominating the natural beauty of the property. So instead of turning to structure for the boost, the team extracted the height they needed from the creation of a small lake adjacent to the footprint of the house. Says Bryan, “We used the material we extracted for the lake to build a plinth above the existing grade. At the end of grading it all out, you really can’t tell we manipulated it to the extent we did.”

The elegant solution doesn’t just solve the problem of the floodplain, it harnesses it—establishing a focal point within the larger expanse. It’s now a destination for more than just humans; it welcomes all the nearby wildlife. “The lake anchors that wide-open space,” Bryan says. “It catches the light and reflects it into the house. It becomes part of the ecosystem, with water flowing into and out of it from the streams and creeks on the property.” 

Gone Fishing

“We thought of the house as a tool to get the owners outdoors and allow them to explore the site,” says Steve. To that end, the one-story building takes every opportunity to point the occupants toward a means of egress. “We nerded out a bit by laying out the house exactly north/south and east/west, with two hallways that intersect right in the entry hall.

“The hallways serve as markers of seasonality,” he continues. “As the equinox approaches, you can watch the sun rise and set at the ends of the east/west hallway. It’s a way of understanding the passage between seasons.”  

While the architects “nerd out” about cardinal profundities, the interior design team is often hovering right over their shoulders directing attention to functional practicalities. Says Tim, “They are used to me saying, now you’ve designed another beautiful home that’s fully built-in and you haven’t left me one wall for a piece of furniture—so let’s pull back just a minute.” 

“As an architecture team we tend to find some things we like and run them through the house,” Steve agrees. “And the interior design team does a much better job of thinking about, what is the mood of this space and how do we bring that forward? And how can we think about that with all of the materials. For us, working with the interior design team has been game-changing in terms of the depth, richness, and complexity of the materials we use.” 

For this project, the emphasis was on casual, functional, and durable, infused with as much of the local vibe as possible. “The clients are incredibly unpretentious. They didn’t want to be surrounded by precious things,” Tim explains. “They welcomed the notion of having the exterior’s salvaged material on the inside—and flooring, stonework, and furniture the dogs could live on. They just asked us to make it as friendly as can be.”

In addition to the “straightforward” program of three bedrooms, an office, and a great room, the clients asked for two spaces dedicated to their special passions. The first is a commodious mudroom/gear room. “They’re fishermen and duck hunters, so they have every kind of rain gear, boot gear, waders—anything and everything,” says Tim. Appointed with plentiful built-in storage, easy-to-clean stainless-steel counters, and a dog washing station for the crusty canines, the room underscores the rough-and-ready romance of their frontier life.

When not sporting outdoors, the clients delight in hunkering down for a rousing game of cards, so they also requested a small gathering place to play. The team obliged, designing a charming alcove within the great room with built-in seating and bookshelves. Win, lose, or draw, the clutter can be shut away with sliding pocket doors. 

The intimacy and warmth of the game room hideaway makes it a favorite of the clients and of the entire team—architects and interior designers alike. Says Steve, “We love these human-scale places where you put the building on like a well-loved sweater.”

Wyoming Retreat

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Architect: Steve Hoedemaker, architecture partner; Bryan Chilcote, principal and architect, Hoedemaker Pfeiffer, Seattle

Interior Designer: Tim Pfeiffer, interiors partner; Peak Petersen, principal interior designer, Hoedemaker Pfeiffer, Seattle

Builder: R&T Construction, Afton, Wyoming

Landscape Architect: Allworth Design, Seattle

Project Size: 3,200 square feet

Site Size: 160 acres

Photography: Haris Kenjar (interiors); Gabe Border (exteriors)

Key Products

Cabinetry: KVO Custom Cabinets

Cladding: Reclaimed wood paneling from Montana (exteriors, interiors)

Cooking Ventilation: Vent-A-Hood

Countertops: Da Vinci Marble Basaltina (kitchen); Da Vinci Marble Striato Grigio (primary)

Decking: Yellow cedar

Dishwasher: Thermador

Doors/Windows/Window Systems: Loewen

Door hardware: Rocky Mountain Hardware

Faucets: California Faucets, Newport Brass, PHYLRICH

Flooring: Cle Tile, Ambiente. Earth Elements, Ann Sacks, Artistic Tile, Perfect Hardwood Floors Ski Collection 

Grill: Wolf

Home Control: Savant

Icemaker: Scotsman

Lighting: BK Lighting (exterior); Arteriors, Visual Comfort, Olampia (interiors)

Lighting Control: Lutron

Paints: Sansin (exterior); Benjamin Moore (interior)

Pavers: Sandstone

Range: Wolf

Refrigerator: Sub-Zero

Roofing: AEP Span

Washer/Dryer: Maytag

Window Shading Systems: Lutron

The post Case Study: Wyoming Retreat by Hoedemaker Pfeiffer appeared first on Residential Design.

Empty nesters from Chicago, the clients wanted a place to escape the city and envisioned gathering with their college-age children and future grandkids. To that end, they asked for multiple bedrooms and secondary rooms, such as a game room, exercise room, and den/TV room. “The program was so expansive that if it was just two of them there, the house could feel quite vacuous,” says Jon Heinert, AIA. “We tried to break down that program into a couple of different volumes.”

Instead of following the lakefront convention of placing the long side of the house toward the water view, the architects created two staggered bars and a detached garage perpendicular to the shoreline. This arrangement not only allowed simultaneous views west to the lake and south to the woodland but minimized the size of the 8,927-square-foot house from both the water and the approach. 

“We put probably six different configurations in front of the clients because there were so many opportunities on this site and ways for us to look at it,” Jon says. “To their credit, they quickly gravitated to this scheme because of those opportunities to maximize the view and create a separate courtyard space very different from the view to the woods.”

Joined by a thin glass connector, the two bars slide past each other, the south bar closest to the driveway hiding the north bar behind it from view. The main south volume, designed for just the two of them, contains a living room, dining room, kitchen, den, and screened porch, with an office and the primary suite upstairs. The thermally separated north bar houses a den, rec room, and exercise room on the main level, plus four guest bedrooms and a laundry upstairs. “They can live in half the space when it’s just the two of them,” Jon says. “Only as you arrive into the parking court and landscaped courtyard do you realize the house doubles in size.”

Pattern Language

With three separate buildings to site, the design team made exacting use of ground and vertical planes to create a cohesive whole. The one-story garage and first story of the guest volume are clad in dark Accoya slats, while the upper levels of the main and guest residences are wrapped in lighter-colored black locust boards. 

“The lower story has a vertical, textural relationship to the tree trunks, whereas the upper story is flush board siding with finger-jointed, toothed joinery that has more of a cabinetry quality,” Jon says. To screen neighbors on the north, the garage cladding transforms into a lattice-like fence that continues at the same height as the garage, joining it with the guest volume across the grass-and-gravel courtyard. 

Rectilinear pavers set within the gravel entry court direct visitors between the sliding volumes. On axis with the water view, they lead straight through the glass link between the north and south buildings. Its doors can be folded away for easy access to the lakefront and the pool behind the guest volume.

Chosen for its durability, Croatian limestone is another unifying element, beginning at the main house entry. “We started thinking about how we could create a sense of enclosure and protection, particularly at the entry, and could make the experience of ultimately getting to that lake view be more of a surprise,” Jon says. 

The clerestory-topped wall spans the front of the main house, breaking at the glazed entry corner. From there it turns 90 degrees, continuing through the house and out the back, where it becomes a low seating wall on the pool terrace. Inside, an opening in the wall contains a beveled window seat opposite the dining room, offering a view of the courtyard. The other opening is the link that goes to the north building. “The wall was conceived of almost as a preexisting thing that the wood structure was built around,” Jon says. First-level floors in both volumes are laid with the same limestone, which continues out onto the pool deck and clads the infinity-edge pool. 

Full Transparency

Other than the stone, the architects sought to use domestic materials. In keeping with the character of the surrounding oak woodland, the main house foyer has randomly matched, plain-sawn veneer white oak walls and casework. That oak millwork reappears in the kitchen, stairwell, and almost all the rooms in both volumes—a touchstone that ties the interiors together.

Slatted ceilings are solid white oak and lined with acoustical insulation to absorb the reverberations of the large living space. The wood ceiling extends into the screened side porch and outside as a deep soffit that covers the entryway. 

Behind the foyer, a glossy white box defines a center core containing the dining room and back cooking wall of the kitchen. “The dining room is a deviation,” Jon says. “High-gloss, white lacquered sliding doors open to this insular space removed from the big view to the lake.” There, an understated marble fireplace, upholstered banquette, and whitewashed cedar nickel-gap paneling create an intimate atmosphere with a courtyard view.

The clients’ preference for an all-white kitchen resulted in the selection of matte-white porcelain for the countertops. It was also used on the upper cabinets and backsplash on the kitchen’s cooking wall, where it meets the lacquered paneling that encloses the core. Around the other side, that central core also contains an elevator to the primary suite, a mechanical room, and back-of-house services.

If a lake house is all about the scenic setting, the open kitchen/family room offers the full manifestation of that view. Its two walls of full-height glazing meet at a mitered corner, the better to appreciate the panorama of water and woods. The family room’s sinuous suspended fireplace, too, is designed to let your eye move past it to the landscape beyond. 

“We wanted to have these rooms experience all the site, not just lake or woods but all at the same time,” Jon says. Upstairs, the primary suite at the back of the house has a similar treatment—and a bonus view. Set back from the living space below, it looks out on a planted roof—a mirror of the roof over the garage. 

“The roof was a preplanted tray system and was established super quick,” he says. “We have this incredible bee population that developed around it.” Here and in the guest wing, white oak floors on the second story lend a soft contrast to the limestone floors at ground level.

While the house is a comfortable place to host their family, the couple can feel equally good about spending time there by themselves. Thoughtful and bespoke, it benefits from a scenario in which the clients held the team to the design’s defining principles. 

“The clients were incredible to work for,” Jon says. “More so than I’ve experienced in the past, they were so set on making sure every decision they made was adhering to the original diagram. They didn’t want anything to sacrifice the materiality and organization.” That sense of discipline shows—and is a win for everyone. 

Meadow Lane Retreat

Lakeside, Michigan

Architect: Jon Heinert, AIA, principal in charge; Emily Ray, AIA, project architect, Wheeler Kearns Architects, Chicago

Builder: Bulley & Andrews, Chicago

Interior designer: Branca, Chicago

Landscape architect: Hoerr Schaudt, Chicago

Structural engineer: Enspect Engineering, Chicago

Civil engineer: Abonmarche, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Lighting designer: Lux Populi 

Project size: 8,927 square feet; 1,480 square feet garage/storage

Site size: 2.55 acres

Construction cost: Withheld

Photography: Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick+McCaugherty

Key Products

Cladding: Accoya, black locust/Totem Lumber, Reynobond/ACM metal panels, Giallo D-Istria stone

Cooktop: Wolf

Cooktop vent hood: Miele

Countertops: Dekton, natural stone

Door hardware/locksets: Olivari Levers

Drywall: Georgia-Pacific

Elevator: Savaria Infinity

Exterior paving: Giallo D’Istria stone

EV car chargers: ChargePoint Home Flex

Faucets: Dornbracht, Waterworks

Fireplace: Focus Cheminées

Flooring: Giallo D’Istria stone, Apex plain-sawn white oak

Home automation: Premiere Systems

Humidity control: AprilAire

HVAC: WaterFurnace, Titus

Indoor air filtration: Aerus

Insulation/housewrap: VaproShield, Hunter Panels Xci Ply, WeatherBond, Knauf, SWD Urethane

Lighting: Tech Lighting, Lumenpulse, Optic Arts, Lucifer

Lighting control systems: Savant

Millwork: Parenti (custom)

Outdoor grill: Wolf

Outdoor shower: Calazzo

Ovens: Wolf

Paints/stains: Benjamin Moore (interior), Tnemec (exterior steel)

Passage doors/hardware: Olivari levers, Accurate locks

Radiant heating: Triangle Tube, Warmboard

Refrigerator: Sub-Zero

Roofing: Revere Copper ContinentalBronze, LiveRoof, WeatherBond

Sauna: Finlandia

Sinks: Blanco, Decolav, Kohler

Skylights: VELUX

Toilets: TOTO

Tub: JEE-O, Kohler

Window shading systems: Lutron

Window wall systems: Grabill Windows (now Pella)

Windows: Grabill (now Pella), Agnora

The post Case Study: Meadow Lane Retreat by Wheeler Kearns Architects appeared first on Residential Design.

“Our clients reside in Warsaw, Poland, and met at the University of Chicago, so they have a Midwest connection,” says Brian Johnsen, AIA. “They have a place in Chicago and two kids—one in college and one out. They were looking for a place on a lake to get away from the hectic city and bring the family together.

“We had been talking with them since 2018, but they were not in a rush. They were looking for meaningful architecture in the Midwest. They had looked all around the Great Lakes but couldn’t find what they were looking for. They have an eye for design—and not just architecture.”

Part of their challenge was that lake houses typically have expansive programs, constrained site sizes, and neighboring structures looming over them. The resulting squeeze pushes the building height and lot density as high as codes will allow. Everyone gets their view of the lake, but at the cost of privacy, quiet, and connection to any other aspects of nature. “Our clients felt most areas were too congested and overbuilt,” says Brian. “They ended up venturing into Northern Michigan and found pristine Lake Charlevoix.” 

About 5½ hours’ drive from Chicago and another couple of hours to the Canadian border, Lake Charlevoix is an inland freshwater lake with 56 miles of shoreline that weaves its way into Lake Michigan. Even here, though, the firm’s clients could not find an existing house that suited their refined aesthetics. “There’s a lot of ill-defined architecture that litters the lake,” Brian explains. “Stuff done in the ’80s by the local builder with an architect on staff.” What they did find, however, was a large, buildable parcel along the lake and they already knew the perfect firm to deliver on their vision. 

Natural Fit

Johnsen Schmaling offered that magic mix of Midwestern bona fides (Brian grew up in Chicago and got his Master’s in Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and European sensibilities (Sebastian Schmaling is from Berlin, with a degree from the Technical University there, and master’s degrees in Architecture from Harvard and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). 

The firm understands—intellectually and intuitively—how to employ Modern architecture to curate views—even where there’s nothing much to look at but a flat, wooded site. Here, the woods meet the lake, and the long, low-slung house the firm designed paces that transition. Placed broadside north to south and facing west to the lake, the house conceals and reveals the landscape with a syncopation of solids and voids. 

“There’s a winding drive you take to get to the property,” Brian explains. “And you go through a number of different ecosystems. You pass through more deciduous-type trees to evergreens, and then the view unfolds to a clearing and there’s an eye shot to the lake. With this stretched out linear organization, we were trying to maximize the transparent midbody of the house to reveal the shoreline and the horizon in the background.” 

This is the breathing room everyone sought for the house, and the experience the clients hoped for when leaving behind their lives in the city. “We had talked a lot about their program and how they wanted to live in the house. Then we showed them several schemes,” Brian recalls. “This was the first one we showed them. And for her, it was instantaneous. She told us, ‘I absolutely fell in love with this, and this is the one we’re going ahead with.’

“She was focused on aesthetics and his attention was on quality. So, it started with her, and then it handed off to him as construction got underway. He had built in Poland with European craft and materials,” Brian says.  

Despite the difficulties in finding the right place to build, the clients’ program was straightforward. They wanted four bedrooms—one for themselves, two for their visiting grown children, and one for guests—plus a great room for bringing everyone together. 

Unlike many American houses, there are no redundant spaces. The only indulgence is a small second-floor “observatory” that can flex as office or lounge space. It takes in the lake view, of course, but also long views across the planted roof to the woods beyond. 

“It’s a very water-centric house,” says Brian. “The living zone takes advantage of the lake views and is semi-emersed in the wooded topography. It’s the interstitial space bridging the boundary between land and water.”

Gale Forces

As peaceful as the lake appears on a quiet day, this is Michigan, and any house on the water must withstand a daunting array of extremes. “We’ve since visited when snow drifts were up over the house,” says Brian. “But we’ve been exposed to this our whole careers. The further north you get in Wisconsin and Michigan, the houses are victims to all sorts of weather. We have gale force winds. And windows have to stay sealed or we get snow blowing through the weather stripping.”

Made in Germany, the window wall systems in APW House are triple glazed. The water view (and some of the worst weather) is due west. A precisely calculated overhang protects the glazing and shades summer sun, while permitting winter sun to penetrate into the house. An adjacent rain garden within the lake-facing terrace absorbs roof runoff. “The green roof also minimizes runoff and helps with energy efficiency,” Brian adds. “And provides year-round visuals.”

A hydronic system heats the slab-on-grade floors, and there’s a forced air system for back-up. (The owners hope to install a solar array in the future.) Meanwhile, those lift-slide window walls open east and west, allowing natural ventilation to cool the interiors in summer. 

Wood ceilings and built-ins in the living area and kitchen impart a sense of warmth to the interiors, aided by a board-formed concrete fireplace visible from every angle of the great room. The low-maintenance exteriors mix thermally modified poplar siding and crisp-edged zinc, in keeping with the prevailing somber tones of the surrounding forest and the lake on an overcast day. 

“We always handle the landscape on our projects, and we think about it and nature as other ingredients in the materiality of the houses we design. A lot of people have the preconception that Modern has to be cold and sterile. We like a nice balance of cleanness and fineness with a degree of warmth to balance it,” says Brian.  

“This house is wrapped in a wood blanket, and everything else is the ever-changing landscape. The transition of fall to winter, spring to summer—and that’s much more dynamic than anything permanent in the house.” 

APW House

Charlevoix, Michigan

Architect: Brian Johnsen, AIA, and Sebastian Schmaling, AIA, principals in charge; P.J. Murrill, project architect, Johnsen Schmaling Architects, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Builder: PMGC, Traverse City, Michigan

Project Size: 5,070 square feet

Site Size: 3.5 acres

Construction Cost: Withheld

Photography: John J. Macaulay

Key Products

Cabinetry: Custom

Cabinetry Hardware: Schlage

Cladding: Cambia Wood; Rheinzink

Cooking Ventilation: Zephyr

Cooktop/Range/Ovens: Wolf

Countertops: Neolith

Dishwasher: Miele

Entry Doors/Windows/Window Wall Systems: NanaWall

Fireplace: DaVinci

Garage Doors: Super Sneaky

Microwave Drawer: Sub-Zero

Refrigerator: Sub-Zero

Roofing: Johns Manville membrane roof; Hanging Garden vegetated roof

Thermal/Moisture Barriers: Huber ZIP System

Underlayment/Sheathing: Huber ZIP System

The post Case Study: APW House by Johnsen Schmaling Architects appeared first on Residential Design.

Nevertheless, the project conjured mixed feelings for Jim Estes, FAIA. Like many conservation-minded architects, he isn’t keen on the development occurring here. “This is a rare place with farms, some of them going down to the ocean, that are being subdivided,” he says. “This lot was in the crosshairs of a field that had been there for more than 200 years, with old walls around it. I didn’t want to say no to building but tried to find a way to preserve a sense of the old fields that are still being hayed.”

Designed as a getaway for Boston empty-nesters who plan to eventually live here full time, it is the first house to be built in a field separated into four equal-sized lots measuring 1.4 acres. The design team hoped to set a precedent by placing the house on one side of the lot rather than plopping it in the middle, as is common in the surrounding subdivisions. Jim and his clients even approached the owners of the other lots to suggest the same treatment and that lawns be limited to preserve the field areas between the houses. 

The big siting consideration, of course, was the water view east to the West Fork River. Jim placed the house parallel to the street, canting it slightly toward the view and to avoid direct northern and southern exposure. The major glass areas face east, eliminating extreme solar gain in summer and heat loss in the winter.  

While the firm is known for its innovative takeoffs on local building traditions and materials, resulting in taut shingled houses that open themselves to the land, this one distills that idea further. The driveway ends at a flat-roofed carport and porch. Behind them, two 18-foot-wide rectilinear, low-pitched volumes “slide by” each other, giving the project its name. 

Identical in section, the longer volume contains the entry/mudroom; open kitchen, dining, and living space; and office. It lightly touches the parallel 3-bedroom volume at the end of a corridor, where full-height glass lets in light. “In plan, the slide-by arrangement creates the classic ‘go through the building toward the light at the end of a long passageway,’” Jim says.

Long and Low

The home’s low profile is a refreshing departure from surrounding new builds featuring “half in, half out” houses that sever the relationship with the land. “Because of the high water table, it’s cheaper to dig down 4 feet and have the foundation stick up 3 or 4 feet if they want a basement, and then take dirt from the hole and pile it against the foundation,” Jim explains. 

The 5V Crimp Galvalume roof is externally fastened, like the utilitarian treatment one sees on nearby barns. “We try to keep the pitch low; it’s a combination of what works visually when we’re freehanding the drawing and avoiding creating a lot of space on the interior for heat buildup,” Jim says. A more distant consideration is that the roof is “a walker,” he adds. Low-pitched roofs save money on labor because installation is easier and quicker. “You don’t have to set up scaffolding or use roof jacks; you can just walk on it.”

Strategically grouped, off-the-shelf windows also help to simplify the form, in keeping with local farm architecture. “Rather than punching out windows here and there, we tried to group them, which lets the forms read better,” Jim says. “That also makes it stronger on the interior.” The building is clad in scrappy white pine boards cut 1 inch thick by 12 inches wide. 

“We’ve been using the white pine a lot lately here in New England,” Jim says. “The trees are in their second or third growth and cut selectively. It is a native softwood tree, often very knotty. The mills we buy it from are pretty rugged outfits that use big old rotary blades. If you go less than 1 inch thick, the thickness of boards can vary by ¼ inch, which is a nice thing to take advantage of.”

The boards were air-dried on site for about eight months to increase their stability. For builder Dan Kinsella, it was a cost-efficient move that required some early planning. “We made spacers out of PVC from the lumberyard; PVC doesn’t cause moisture to be trapped between stacks,” he says. “We covered the stacks with tarps to keep them dry while allowing a lot of airflow, and then primed the boards in place on both sides with a solid-body acrylic stain.”

Plain Modern

That unfussy sense of ease is felt inside, too. Cathedral ceilings in the main volume and bedrooms express the roof pitch and the owners’ wish for spaces that are sunlit, open, and informal. Every room is used every day except for the two smaller bedrooms, each of which has a prefabricated metal ship’s ladder to a loft, no doubt to the delight of visiting grandchildren. Outdoor terraces bracket the living and dining area—one for sitting, the other for outdoor meals. 

As well as an understated response to the setting, Slide-By House is awash in finishes that lend an airy sense of space. Flooring is constructed of 2¼-wide maple planks. The kitchen and baths are fitted with IKEA cabinets with custom fronts. In the kitchen they’re combined with open shelving, engineered stone countertops, and glass backsplash tiles. 

In the year the owners have lived there, the house has been operating at Net-Zero. Jim attributes that not just to the 37 solar roof panels but to careful, commonsense construction. “One of the satisfying things is that it achieves Net-Zero even though it isn’t super-insulated,” such as with exterior foam, Jim says. “Normally when we work to create a Net-Zero house, there’s a 20-to-30 percent premium on construction.” This was not a high-budget house, he adds, and its strong energy performance was achieved by following industry best practices such as meticulous framing, sheathing, and taping, and filling the stud bays with foam. 

Few embellishments were needed, or indeed desired, outside the house either. The immediate landscape was intentionally kept spare as befits the pastoral setting. Only a board-formed concrete site wall defines the small, freeform lawn that pushes up against the terrace, with the meadow grass as a billowy backdrop. 

Slide-By House

Westport, Massachusetts

Architect: Jim Estes, FAIA, Estes Twombly + Titrington Architects, Newport, Rhode Island

Builder: Dan Kinsella, Kinsella Building Company, Portsmouth, Rhode Island

Project size: 2,150 square feet

Site size: 1.4 acres

Construction cost: Withheld

Photography: Warren Jagger Photography

Key Products

Cabinetry: IKEA with Kokeena fronts

Cladding: Locally cut white pine

Countertops: Caesarstone

Decking: Accoya

Entry doors: Weather Shield

Faucets: Blanco, Kohler, Grohe

Finish materials: Radiata pine trim

Flooring: Maple

HVAC: Fujitsu, Lifebreath HRV system

Insulation: Icynene closed and open cell foam

Landscape pavers: Cast concrete

Lighting: Dals, Poulsen

Lighting control systems: Lutron

Outdoor shower: Central Brass

Paints/stains: Benjamin Moore

Passage doors/hardware: Flush maple S.C. doors, Kwikset levers

Millwork, molding, trim: Locally cut white pine

Refrigerator: Sub-Zero

Roofing: 5V Crimp Galvalume

Sauna: Finlandia

Sinks: Create Good Sinks, Grohe, IKEA

Skylights: VELUX

Surfacing (other than counters): Laminate

Toilets: TOTO

Tub: Americh

Weatherization/Underlayment: ZIP System, ¾-inch AdvanTech subfloor

Windows/Window Wall Systems: Weather Shield

The post Case Study: Slide-By House by Estes Twombly + Titrington appeared first on Residential Design.