A Family and a Meadow

The Silver Residence is a mountain retreat  from the city for an extended family. The unique landscape inspired our approach to design. The home is located in the western foothills of the North Cascades, known for its rainy temperate forests. This site presented us with an unexpected opportunity, as if carved out of the surrounding evergreens and ferns, a meadow dotted with mature Big Leaf Maple trees. Standing in the heart of the meadow, it felt like we had left the present and stepped into a fairytale or pastoral scene from the past. The only thing missing from this picture was a home and people to populate the scene. 

Picturing a Home in the Landscape
We wanted the home to be as if it were a repurposed ruin that one had stumbled upon. We turned to tools from the English Picturesque to situate the house in the landscape so that it could participate in one’s experience of the meadow as a character in the scene.

The home itself was designed as an arrangement of different buildings, with each serving separate functions. The home’s communal spaces are located in the large wooden building reminiscent of nearby wooden barns. The more private functions of the house are located in more contemporary corrugated volumes, situated as additions toward the forest. These two halves of the home are mediated by a white wall that runs the length of the building,  structuring space and contributing to the composition like a three-dimensional canvas.

Out of the picture, into the world. Out of the city, into the meadow.