In McLean, Virginia, the McLean Mansion developer Ahmad Khreshi of North-Virginia based Home Perfection Contracting collaborated with architect Peter VanderPoel and designer Karen Bengel to create this modern house that borrows from Frank Lloyd Wright’s philosophy of incorporating the house into the landscape. The house is also influenced by the Mondrian style, a movement named for Piet Mondrian characterized by colourful arrangements of squares and rectangles.
The house has three distinct masses — garage, living and bedroom — and three levels, each one set at a different ground level.
Designed first by hand and then by computer, the asymmetrical window pattern is laid out in the Mondrian style, which is repeated in the asymmetrical design of the Hardie board (fibre-cement siding) on one side of the house.
The opposite side and the middle section are a combination of brick and yakisugi carbonized-wood siding. The yakisugi siding is heat-treated in a way similar to an ancient Japanese technique, with the wood burned to give it a carbon layer that protects it from insects and decay.
“We wanted something different. That’s what we are on the hunt for. We needed the house to stand out from the rest [of the houses], yet belong to the neighbourhood.” says project developer Ahmad Khreshi.
