Cedar boards

This project came about when I happened to meet the owner of the property at a local bookstore. We serendipitously picked up the same architecture book, and then struck up a conversation.  It turned out he was looking for someone to design his home. It was clear we had a similar design aesthetic, and so we decided to continue the conversation.   Initially, our main focus related to the best and most thoughtful use of this particular property with its parameters considered. It was an odd shaped lot in a coastal region. There were a number of concerns related to ensuring privacy in a densely populated coastal area, as well as meeting the needs of the program. The clients wanted to maximize views with an open floor plan, but also w... More

We has completed a house in higashi kakogawa, japan, with a layer of angled wooden louvers on its façade that secure enough privacy. the building takes the form of an archetypal house shape, complete with a gable roof and floor-to-ceiling glass façade at the front. its construction comprises a simple wooden frame structure, while the architects have wrapped its exterior with galvalume steel plates to protect it from the wind and rain.   We has slightly rotated the direction of the house’s layout at an angle, to ensure privacy from the neighboring buildings. we have also built a wooden fence on the south side of the site to block visual any contact between passersby and the residence. additionally, the angled woode... More

A 2,400 square foot home sited in the low lying, flood prone salt marshes of New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay. The client’s brief was to design a lasting replacement for a multi-generational family home that had been damaged beyond repair during Hurricane Sandy. The site is situated at the end of a small peninsula, bound directly to the west by a commercial shipyard and marina, and to the north, south and east by expansive views of the Barnegat Bay.    Constrained by local ordinance to the existing footprint of the previous home, Salt Box takes on a narrow, rectilinear form. Slight internal shifts in plan and volume create spaces for both retreat and gathering. A patterned rain screen composed of alternating width Atlantic... More

Standing on a blank site, you are struck by its magnitude of beauty. Called the "Rio de Janeiro of North America" by Alexander Graham Bell, due to the picturesque Bras d'Or Lake punctuated by the sizeable island just offshore, the rolling mountains that form the backdrop of the building site are almost completely evergreen and deciduous trees, which are particularly well known for their fall showing of colour. Amongst the sea of emerald green, you see the elongated shape of the white St. Andrew`s Presbyterian Church that sits along the shore in the town of Whycocomagh. As the only point of reference to the township, the house was designed with two aspects. The entryway provides a framed view of the white church sitting across the lake in th... More

A year round cottage minutes from Georgian Bay in Meaford, Ontario, this house derives its form and space from the simplicity of a traditional gabled dogtrot, a typology familiar in the southern US, but less so in northern climates. With the sleeping areas to one side of the breezeway, and the living to the other, the 16foot square opening in the centre of the house provides the Owner with an outdoor living room that keeps them intimately engaged in their environment. The cottage sits at the edge of a clearing, closing off the one side that was previously open to the wetlands, but closing it in such a way as to allow the breezeway to frame the view the Owner has long held from the bunkie they built on the property years ago.The land slopes... More

Surf House is shaped by the raw beauty of it’s context. Located in the small beach enclave of Ditch Plains, long a favorite of surfers and bohemians, the house seeks to capture the warm otherworldly spirit that fills the salt air.   Designed for a young West Village family drawn to the area in part because of the similarity to their native Ireland, the house embraces the natural materials, finishes and landscape traditional to the area. In the spirit of the early Hampton’s work of architects such as Richard Meier and Charles Gwathmey, traditional materials are made contemporary through a reductive color palate and the use of pure, primitive forms. Forms which have pre... More

It was easily expected for us that this client, who is also a friend, could keep living there for a long time by having the sense of arranging the house, being a graphic designer.  On the other hand, it was also a project with a lot of uncertainty factors in a beginning stage, such as child's future presence and a possibility that the part of the house used as a gallery or a mini photography studio. From these conditions, we planed to prepare a box “can be also used as a residence”, just like a barn with a simple space having the necessary minimum function and equipments along the surrounding environment, which secures the comfortable life in the cold and snowy district. Since the site area in the Mt. Moiwa’s s... More

Amantea Architects modernizes a lush and casual urban residential landscape with a Mondrianesque composition of deftly programmed spaces Toronto, Canada, 2020-02-13  Toronto’s Amantea Architects has transformed the landscape of a single-family home in the city’s Forest Hill neighbourhood, clarifying its program while maintaining its lush, layered character. The project comprises a fully redesigned backyard including dining terrace, patio, sports lawn, swimming pool and pavilion—all efficiently programmed within a 560-square-metre space—as well as a new front garden and entryway.   The exterior project began with Amantea’s collaboration on an extensive renovation of the primary residence, led... More

The mountain retreat is a small structure set within a high country station occupying 1300 hectares on the south facing shores of Lake Wakatipu, Central Otago. It is an alpine environment formed by heavily glaciated schist mountainscapes and vegetated below the snow line with beech forest. Early European occupation of the region began in 1840 with explorers seeking to extend pastoral activities established in the gentler environments to the north and east of the Southern Alps. Early European occupation as well as the discovery of the Central Otago Goldfields resulted in structures for shelter and utility made from the stackable weathered schist readily available around the rivers and glaciated mountain slopes. Patrick Reynolds This re... More

The house is a progression of spaces which move from the southern entry towards the northern living areas, which open out dramatically to the sea, Rangitoto and Takapuna Beach. A wall clad in vertical cedar boards greets the visitor outside the building, beginning as a fence on the left then morphing seamlessly into the exterior cladding. This surface of timber curves in towards the entry, then flows under a distinctive circular skylight above the front door, into the entry space. The cedar then flips to the right-hand side, continues along the gallery space and curves around to the right, to reinforce the opening out towards the view, and add drama to the expansiveness of the experience. The clients requested a very warm house, s... More

The project was to refurbish and extend a 1920’s semi-detached cottage in Cambridge. A fairly straight forward brief, but because of the particular site and house we were able to extend to the front as well as back and loft.   This transformed the original cottage into a much more refined and spacious house. In addition the entire house was insulated to bring the house close to new build standards.   Who are the clients and what's interesting about them? The client is a consultant doctor working in Cambridge. She has a particular eye for what design and wanted something out of the ordinary. She owned a flat nearby and purchased the house which was un-modernised. She contacted us after seeing a completed job which had been published and want... More

Located on the leeward side of Cape Cod the Indian Neck spit is the location of this Modernist inspired beach house. Nestled in pine forest and sand dunes looking out to the open water the house is designed to experience seasonal vitality of the location. A simple square of protected habitation, combining indoor and outdoor space under a canopy of lattice Cedar; existing Pitch Pines grow up through the structure providing additional shade.Raised up off the sand, the platform of the house becomes the stage on which a basic set of rooms are arranged, with the principle spaces focused across the broad veranda to Cape Cod Bay. A separate bunk-house with a partially enclosed outdoor shower protects the entrance from the rigors of wind and rain.... More

A series of family cabins hidden in the forest and overlooking Washington's Hood Canal, the Hood Cliff Retreat is located on a 1.13 acre site atop a bluff on a wooded site on the western shore of Hood Canal in the Pacific Northwest. “As avid bird watchers and naturalists, the clients wanted an indoor outdoor family retreat that would immerse them in the stillness of the forest and capture the delicate Washington sunlight and views toward Hood Canal and the Olympic Mountains to the west,” says architect Matt Wittman.Built on the site in 1962, the original dark and opaque cedar cabin left the owners feeling cut off from nature, and they asked for a indoor outdoor retreat that would allow them to be closer to the land and also house... More

The cabin design was initially conceived as a rugged weekend getaway for two. However, during the course of the design process, the two grew to become a family of three, then four. The faceted geometry of the cabin reflects this evolution - a cantilevering form that is both elemental yet appears to be in constant transformation depending on one’s vantage point. It is shaped both by its surroundings and by its occupants, making a lasting connection between what is there and what is to come. Matt Delphenich What were the key challenges? The White Mountains are among the most rugged in New England, with granite outcroppings populating the range. While the site, selected on one of several scouting hikes, was seemingly treacherous a... More