“I like white space.”  This statement from the client, articulated at our initial meeting, would provide the framework for the design process.  His desire was to provide respite and pause for the people inside, as well as objects, artwork, and furniture.  This led to a spatial concept grounded in continuous, voluminous, light-filled spaces with varying levels of transparency based upon privacy requirements. 

Site limitations, both topographic and regulatory, would influence the project’s development all while presenting an opportunity to conceive a design that could challenge how landscape is engaged.  Those ideas are expressed in a building composed of two distinct bars stacked and rotated relative to one another: one firmly anchored to the earth offering the opportunity to move through and over the site; the other suspended above, lending the prospect of endless horizon while perched in the treetops. 

The structural system supports the concept of a building engaged in a constant battle with gravity and levitates of the upper bar through cantilevered overhangs and angled steel columns.  The heavy concrete mass of the lower bar engages the ground plane mirroring protruding ledge present on the site.  It, too, is eroded away to frame the sea beyond, making the volume more permeable, weightless, and connected to the site as it approaches the view.

The interiors are balanced with natural light and ethereality.  In the kitchen, space is defined by an array of light fixtures hung asymmetrically over a collection of cabinetry boxes.  Cantilevered stair treads suspended delicately from the massive concrete wall, in concert with a glass guard, imply weightlessness.  Above, the roof peels back, expanding the sense of space, exchanging the sea for a newfound consciousness of the sky.  Ever-changing patterns of shadow enhance the intersection of the two rotated geometries as the house becomes a receptacle for light.