Strong Focus on Indoor/Outdoor Relationships

Continuous space, natural light, strong indoor/outdoor relationships: a quick look at the photos of this residence makes it clear that these were our preoccupations as we explored the possibilities offered by this project. However, the main challenge of this house, and the thing that forced us to order and organize these interests, came primarily from resolving a fundamental contradiction between our clients' wishes and the site itself. On one hand, they wanted a sustainable house (one of the clients is on the Board of Directors of the Rocky Mountain Institute), which would optimally suggest a south-facing structure with a thin profile to encourage maximum cross breezes and sunlight penetration. On the other hand, having been cooped up in a small apartment in Hong Kong for many years, they wanted the living spaces to open onto the largest possible walled garden that they could fit on the site which, due to the city codes, just happened to be on the northeast side of the property.

The resulting first floor plan shows an L-shaped series of living spaces wrapped around the garage and opening onto an L-shaped garden, though the corners of both L’s are dramatically dematerialized by the open corner of the living room. On the southeast side of the house, overhanging eaves block the summer sun, but allow the winter sun to heat up the concrete floor, which acts as a heat sink. (It also contains an in-floor radiant heating system.) The southwest façade is mostly solid to keep out the punishing western sun. With no air conditioning system in the house, the reflecting pool surrounding the living room cools the breezes that enter the main living spaces. The house is clad primarily with two sustainable materials: smooth-troweled plaster and ship-lapped cement board, both in a subtle range of natural tones. The garage door is clad with stainless steel, while the front door and its surround, like the wood on the interior stairs and second floor, was harvested from a sustainably-managed forest. Located on the roof is a 4 kilowatt photovoltaic system.

Still, we developed strategies to get the effects of a thin, south-facing house even though the main living areas face northeast. Hidden in the relatively strict orthogonal layout is a series of diagonals in plan and section that bring in wind and light from the south side of the site. One allows cross breezes to move from the office, located near the entrance and wrapped by clerestories to bring in the afternoon light, to the foyer (through a slot in the wall which can be closed by a sliding panel), then into the dining area, and finally, after passing through a wood screen, into the kitchen, located in the northeast to take in the morning light. But the more dramatic example is evidenced by the monitor-like opening which can be seen on the second floor and whose eave faces due south. Created by dispersing the solid, service elements of the house in such as way as to create what we call a “diagonal void,” during the winter it brings direct light to the furthest northern corner of the house. Just as importantly, this internal massing (as opposed to the more common external massing) creates an atrium space that not only contains the stair, but also vents the hot air of the house through a pair of motorized skylights in the roof. Comparing this house with the previous house on this site, built in 1953, it is 10 degrees cooler in the summer, 7 degrees warmer in the winter, and it uses 55% less energy per square foot.

The atrium has several other important roles beyond its sustainable function, underscoring the point that although this is a green house, we attempted to make all of its features compelling in and of themselves. So first off, its verticality contrasts effectively with the compressed horizontality of much of the first floor – a horizontality meant to intensify the interior’s relationship with the garden, which is planted with drought resistant plants and partially irrigated by a gray water system. Secondly, its mixture of reflected and direct light, from both windows and skylights, effectively tracks the sun during the daytime, and at night, emits a soft, lantern-like glow that can be seen from the heavily trafficked street. Finally, the atrium also serves to organize the arrangement of rooms on the second floor, particularly the master bedroom, which has an internal window that allows the clients to take in the ever changing light in the double-height space, as well as see someone on the stairs or at the front door. A quick look at the second floor plan also indicates that it was by pinching the true south and north corners of this floor that not only produces the location for the monitor and the kitchen skylight, but also makes it possible for a fat, square plan to have more of the qualities that a thin plan would have. Situated to block noise from the busy boulevard, the master bathroom takes advantage of this quality with light from three different orientations. Where this room has a tree-house feel and a shower located so that the client can watch the many joggers go by on a popular path below, the smaller bathroom has highly controlled top light that generates a more calming effect, albeit challenged by the artwork and flower arrangement that were selected by the architects.