The overarching design goal was to create two dwellings: one for a nuclear family and one for guests and extended family. These dwellings would not only relate to the site and to each other but also have their own deep sense of privacy and grounding in the landscape. We sited the buildings at the deepest portion of this flag lot to have distance from the road and neighboring houses, and to take advantage of the protected wetland views to the north.
The buildings are single-story structures, and walk-out basements were a happy result of the natural topography of the site. The houses are organized around a gravel parking court from which each dwelling is entered, and both homes open up to the views opposite the court. The window openings on the court side are deliberate and measured to allow for natural light and ventilation, but also to preserve a sense of privacy for the interiors. On the back sides of each dwelling, large openings frame views and bring the landscape into the interior.
The interior plan of the primary dwelling had parallel goals to the overall siting concept: to create distant, private spaces for sleeping and bathing that connect to a public core for gathered living. The design evolved into a courtyard-style building, with bedroom wings on either side of the central living, dining, kitchen, and outdoor courtyard spaces. The foundation was designed to allow a single step from the living areas to the courtyard, which, together with the 9'x9' sliding doors, makes the connection between the two spaces seamless. The building massing steps down from west to east to follow the natural terrain on which the house was built.
Rather than endless walls of glass, each window throughout both dwellings was placed to frame a specific view—an approach inspired by how painters compose their work. The palette of the interiors—white, black, red, yellow, and blue—is an homage to the primary colors from which all colors are derived and to the modernist architects from whom the design took inspiration.
The interior window frames are black, which makes the windows disappear and focuses the eye on the exterior. Vertical, clear pine siding relates to the verticality of the surrounding woods, and an applied black stain makes the buildings recede into the landscape. The roofs are shed roofs, each pitched to either open to the view or follow the contour of the topography.
The result is a family compound that sits gently on and relates deeply to its site, with interiors for meaningful living that are intentionally connected to the landscape.
