Elemental Home

This home orchestrates raw, elemental materials to define thresholds and evoke comfort. Dark brick wraps the exterior, blurring the shift between the upper and lower volumes, while recessed spaces provide shaded points of entry. A tall volume at the southeast corner frames the front door, which is accessed through a wood-lined space that opens to the sky and up a pathway of rugged stones surrounded by wildflowers. Inside, an elevated platform with exposed wood beams mediates between the living spaces and library, which features a wooden desktop and plate steel shelves filling the space above. Polished concrete floors cool bare feet in the summer, and generous windows and sliding doors connect the interior to a covered patio. A sculptural staircase of rough-cut wood and steel defines the threshold between public and private realms.

“I liked how this project explored the ideas around brutalism at the residential scale. It’s been an interesting topic lately in architectural discourse, and to see such a tight set of parameters explored as domestic space is rather fascinating.”

—Barbara Bestor, FAIA