A 3500 S.F. house for a Denver couple in Salida Colorado, the house strongly represents the firm’s belief that mountain houses should be fully integrated into the landscape. The house creates unique relationships with the North sloping site; a grand entry plaza, a quiet seating enclosure, a tree top deck, with expansive views to the Angel of Shavano. The house forms a wall on the site running North-South creating privacy and enclosure as you pass through, embracing the different qualities afforded by the site; living spaces dominate with views from the upper level, while bedrooms are sequestered with panoramas at trunk level through the forest. The house embraces modern technologies including a garage roof-top array of solar panels, passive solar elements, and a ground source heat pump with radiant floors.
This 320 Square Foot cabin near Westcliffe Colorado, at the foot of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains, is a multi-functional mountain retreat. A large room that is both a kitchen and living area converts to separate sleeping areas by night. The kitchen counter extends to create a dining table in front of a built-in bench. By night the bench and table retract and allow a Murphy bed to fold down. A futon which is part of a living area by day, folds to a bed at night.
The cabin reveals its layered structure and scissor truss roof framing and is sheathed by cement board siding with galvanized metal tab reveals which glint like the flakes of mica indigenous to the site.
As a project the 186 S.F. cabin represents two urban dwellers needs to escape the city. In a subdivided cattle ranch of 40 acre plots overlooking the Sangre De Cristo mountain range, the cabin is a modern day settler’s claim. Perched on an outcropping of rocks at 9,800 feet it is an amalgam of the windblown Bristlecone pine and the natural tectonics of the early settlers cabins both indigenous to the area.
The cabin’s skin alternately is tongue and groove cedar or 5/8” exterior plywood with 1x4 cedar slats over 2x2 cedar battens. The design recalls the horizontal lines in the body of settler’s cabins and the vertical quality of board and batten used in the gable. Battens are installed directly behind 2x4 studs concealing plywood joints and linking vertically to roof joists. This configuration reveals the inner construction of studs spaced at 16” on center and as interrupted by king and trimmer studs at window and door openings. The screens act as security shutters over windows and an escape from the heat of mid-day sun.
Designed for a 5 acre lot near Silver City, New Mexico, this 1800 S.F. house incorporates many sustainable features. On a flat site atop a bluff the house is designed with view and solar orientation in mind and utilizes a rain water harvesting cistern within its roof system. Other technologies include SIPS (structural insulated panel system) and ICF’s (insulated concrete forms); for their ease of construction and high insulation values. The organization of the house as a series of smaller structures helps to keep an intimate scale, good individual room day-lighting, and creates exterior courts or “outdoor rooms” that are easily accessible from the house. An idea that is both practical and strongly rooted in the indigenous architecture. Copper siding recalls the regions historic mining heritage.
This modern style house fronting a golf course opens up to amazing views of downtown Denver and to the magnificent sandstone rock formations of the Roxborough park hogback. Its horizontal orientation helps to integrate the house with the land from without and its open plan and numerous patios allow for direct access to the outdoors from within.
