* Residential Architecture: Sam’s Creek House by Bates Masi Architects

Residential Architecture: Sam’s Creek House by Bates Masi Architects: “..Bates Masi Architects have designed Sam’s Creek, located in Bridgehampton, New York, USA..We live in a time where smart phones and tablets are in everyone’s hands and multitasking is the normal way of life. Influenced from the client’s multitasking lifestyle, a diverse set of requirements developed for a new home. The clients, one of whom is the owner of a public relations company, requested that multiple activities could take place throughout the house without interruption; a dinner party could take place while simultaneously entertaining a group of children, or guests could come and go without disturbing the rest of the family. These programmatic requests diagrammatically divide the site as well as establish view corridors from front to back. Transparency through the house puts simultaneous activities on display, and provides a setting where guests can see and be seen..A series of open-ended boxes, each tailored to a portion of the architectural program focuses the view from the street though the house to the landscape in the rear. Mahogany boards wrap floors, ceilings, and walls to heighten the perspectival view and provide privacy from neighbors. Each box has independent audio, video, and climate control to operate autonomously and the length, height, and volume of each box is adjusted to appropriately encase the program. Interstitial spaces between the arranged boxes are gardens and patios. The overlap of the boxes creates thresholds that highlight interesting moments. With each box occupying a specific program, the multitasking of different events is achieved..With a limited material palette, travertine is used as flooring for the terraces and as cladding on portions of the open-ended boxes. To use the stone as an exterior cladding, a custom hanging system was designed. The travertine siding is captured at the top and bottom by a CNC wire formed frame and overlapped by the following course above. The proportion and repetition of the siding references the wood shingle vernacular ubiquitous in the area..The fireplace merges a utilitarian object and a crafted, sculptural work of art. The fireplace conceals a moment frame, supporting lateral loads to allow for the large open-ended volume of the dining and living room. It also houses a coat closet and the HVAC components. The overlapping, repeating bronze components were digitally fabricated and assembled on site. Different patina processes were studied to achieve the dark bronze facing the room and the polished bronze on the interior of the hood. Sunlight from above is reflected by the polished bronze and filters through the gaps from the overlapped construction. Similar construction methods were utilized for the master bedroom headboard using repeating strips of belting leather..The separation of program into individual volumes allows the multitasking lifestyle of the clients to continue into their home. Where multitasking on a daily basis can seem chaotic, a new order is developed by the architecture. The client’s new home allows them to keep up with their busy lifestyle while also providing respite from it..”  Extensive glazing, natural light, views; interesting materiality, interior volumes and details..

See our posts on six other homes by Bates Masi Architects:

• Residential Architecture: Robins Way House by Bates Masi Architects
• Residential Architecture: Pryor House by Bates Masi + Architects
• Residential Architecture: Noyack Creek House by Bates Masi Architects
• Residential Architecture: Quail Hill House by Bates Masi Architects
• Residential Architecture: Lion’s Head by Bates Masi Architects
• Residential Architecture: Genius Loci, Montauk by Bates Masi + Architects

image + article: Contemporist

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* Residential Architecture: C+P House by Gonçalo das Neves Nunes

Residential Architecture: C+P House by Gonçalo das Neves Nunes: “..The house intends to interpretate the relations between indoors and outdoors through yards, terraces, balconies and lightshade slabs. The implantation takes advantage of the plot’s morphology that permits two entrances (main and garage) at different altimentric levels..The house is apparently monolithic but it shows itself to South and East finding views and exposition. The main entrance is done through a recess in the Western façade where you can find a distribution area framed by a courtyard. The private zones are organized in the upper level and the social zones at the entrance level..As you go down to the garage level, that is partially underground, you find an exterior covered space that continues the social use of the house by its relation with the swimming pool..The facades are in Travertino stone and the slabs are marked by its beam boundary that is concrete coated. The lower level walls are in raw concrete. The interior comfort is sought by the Walnut wood panels and floors..”  Extensive glazing, natural light; indoor / outdoor and materials sensibility..

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image: © FG + SG; article: “C+P House / Gonçalo das Neves Nunes” 09 Jan 2013. ArchDaily.<http://www.archdaily.com/316009&gt;

* Residential Architecture: JPGN House by Macedo, Gomes & Sobreira

Residential Architecture: JPGN House by Macedo, Gomes & Sobreira: “..The owner of this house, at the South Lake residential district in Brasilia, Brazil, had grown up on that same street. The window of his bedroom was opened to the view of the Paranoá Lake towards northwest, with the monumental zone of Brasília right at the opposite bank.  He had witnessed the evolution of that landscape, and intended to keep living together with it. The house was almost fully elevated on piloti, on the edge of the height allowed by urban regulations, opening the view above the neighbors’ roofs..Since they were still a young couple without kids, the basic programme (living-room, office, bedrooms, kitchen, laundry) was distributed only on the upper level, shortening daily circulation – especially when kids are still small. Internal rooms were articulated in a way to allow the view of the landscape, now the main leitmotif of the design, complemented by a panoramic deck freely set over the roof..The ground level was distributed with small embankments in different levels, in a way to avoid an excessive ceiling height. The garage is on an intermediate level, along with a service area equipped with a freight elevator and an employee bedroom, in a way that it hides the vehicles when seen from the veranda above. A small two-bedroom flat was planned for future occupation of the pilotis, when kids would demand more independence – a plan executed in advance by the owner during the construction, so it would bring more autonomy to the leisure area and allowing the family to have guests..The structural system, ordered in relatively conventional spans of 5,4m and 6m commanded the design with a strict 60cm modulation to which all the elements and components are adjusted. Flat-beams and waffle slabs made possible a flat-ceiling formal solution, even with the large cantilevers that allow the house to lean towards the landscape..The living-room, the office, and the master-bedroom – this one with a small terrace – are directly open to the view, as is indirectly the kitchen – connected to the living-room by sliding panels. The integration between these rooms is also made by a set of continuous cabinets, a stone countertop and horizontal windows – opened to the front street-view..In order to protect the internal rooms from the inclemency of the tropical sun on the northwest façade – the one open to the view – it were used one-meter eaves and a thick sill clad with marble, ensuring protection during the hottest times of the day. The solution for the strip window was a set of adjustable perforated sun blinds, concealed in an external box completely independent from the glass, and separated from the ceiling slab enough to allow the entrance of the tenuous sunset light – without completely blocking the view of the sky. The 40cm-height strip along the ceiling slab surrounds the whole elevated volume, bringing to the interior spaces the several nuances of sunlight along the day, making more palpable the passage of time..The recording of time, in another duration, was also determinant on the selection of patinable cladding for the contention walls on the ground level – rough limestone – and for the upper façade – a kind of Brazilian travertine cut in 60cmX15cm plates..Following the same classic logic, so to say, a  integrates vegetation, internal and external areas on the ground level, while the upper level is floored with simple porcelain, set accordingly to the modulation of the house..”  Extensive glazing, interesting fenestration, natural light, garden views; interesting form, interior volumes and materiality..

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image: © Joana França; article: Gaete , Javier . “JPGN House / Macedo, Gomes & Sobreira” 30 Oct 2012. ArchDaily. <http://www.archdaily.com/287261&gt;

* Residential Architecture: 2Verandas House by Gus Wüstemann

Residential Architecture: 2Verandas House by Gus Wüstemann: “..This is a house for a young South African family in Erlenbach, just outside Zurich, Switzerland, along the lake.The plot is in a suburban context and therefore pretty dense with family homes, typical for the area. The site is on a slope, where on top there are beautiful views to the lake with evening sun and at the lower part there is a group of smaller family houses..The clients asked us for a solution for a house that made most of the big plot, wanting a view, but not end up with a house on top of the hill and a rest of a garden down below..Our solution for this plot was to occupy the periphery of the site, with the main house on top of the hill and the pool house at the bottom, both houses connected through a solid stony promenade: 2 verandas..By occupying the periphery:  there is one veranda at the top, the promenade is going alongside the eastern border of the plot leading to the south end, there is a park in the middle of the site..The park can be consumed as nature from all three sides and therefore there is no ‚left over’ of  land. The stony promenade connects the two verandas, is a site of its own, where you walk or sit and enjoy the view to the lake or the park. With the promenade, the garden moves up to the level of the living room and it connects all levels of the house with the garden..The main house is a stony, concrete, hammer shaped volume over two levels, that contains the living rooms. In the upper part is the public living room for invitations and dining with a beautiful view over the lake of Zurich. On the ground level is the family lounge with an exterior patio that can be joined as one room with the living room.  All the windows disappear and the inside and outside patio become one. That patio connects all bedrooms and is a lounge to sit together privately and watch a movie..The circulations in and out of that space are controlled by concrete volumes at the ceiling that condense the space through mass and light and slow the circulation..The two rooms are crossed above each other, at the ground floor level we pull a wooden curtain around the concrete volume to create the private sleeping quarters..The upper living room has a shark fin like shape, so the space is very high at the back of the space with northern sky lights, and is lower at the front to frame the view..The inside and the outside are joined, as we let all the windows disappear, so there is only the concrete mass left. The inside becomes a covered  outside spacer:  Mediterranean feeling in the northern hemisphere..The absence of the window is the essential instrument to actually unite in and outside space; it is the glass itself that reminds us of the border of in and outside. In many projects nowadays this fact is neglected or simply ignored and therefor glass is used in an extensive way..We chose natural and raw materials like concrete, travertine or wood. The concrete is formed and communicates with the space through light gaps that give that extra feeling of finesse to the shear mass of the concrete. Throughout the whole house indirect lights are giving directions, and attract the periphery of the spaces rather than the center. The indirect light is creating the atmosphere..On the underground floor there is a gym, a movie room and wine cellar all arranged around the light up masses of the concrete that give the house a whole different playful area. There is raw concrete and raw wood and therefor a lot of texture..”  Interesting form(s), interior volumes and fenestration; extensive glazing, natural light, lake views..

See our post on another home by Gus Wüstemann: Residential Architecture: Feldbalz House by Gus Wüstemann.

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image: © Bruno Helbling; article: Hernandez , Diego . “2Verandas / Gus Wüstemann” 16 Oct 2012. ArchDaily. <http://www.archdaily.com/281278&gt;