OPENhouse

OPENhouse:

Seven outdoor structured spaces,
on three levels,
facing four directions,
yields one very open house.

SITING
We began with a dense, lakefront neighborhood, a narrow site and the need for enclosed outdoor space for Bubba, the couple’s large German Shepherd. Our initial design questions were thus:
How to open the home to the south to capture dynamic, down-lake views and harvest summer sun, when the waterfront faces southwest?
How to preserve open views for the neighbors across this parcel while extending the house as close to the water as permitted?
How to open up the largest possible private courtyard for Bubba?
How to design an open floor plan and position openings over several floors to collect cooling lake breezes so the owners could forgo air conditioning?
And how to open the living spaces a variety of outdoor rooms suitable for various experiences of sun and rain, hot and cold, public and private?

The winning answer to these questions is a home pivoted 45-degrees from its neighbors. The house plan pinballs from setback to setback on the journey to its pointed lakeside tip, creating a variety of optimized outdoor spaces along the way, and preserving the neighbors’ diagonal views across the property while “borrowing” their front yards to extend OPENhouse’s line of sight.

The shared living space is essentially one large room - a kitchen, dining and lounging overlooked by a mezzanine office. Steel construction permits an open corner to the lake with massive glass doors that disappear for most of the spring, summer and fall, permitting unimpeded access to an expansive deck.