Open House

The idea of Open House is to create a 3,700 square foot compound of buildings with barrier-free access to all areas, without harming the natural topography of the site. The buildings form an arc at level grade. Two main buildings separate the public areas from the private areas. A third building defines the garage and a fourth serves as an entry vestibule. The composition and massing of these buildings forms a private enclave intended to allow the public spaces an opportunity to fully open onto the sculpted site. Each space within the buildings further manipulates volume and scale by alternating between a sense of compression and a sense of openness. Each building is subtly defined by material, color, size, or finish. The most public building is the tallest; clad in dark-brown, stacked-bond, emperor-size brick. The most private building is for the bedrooms; clad in light-brown, running-bond, closure-size brick. The garage building is constructed in white running bond CMU and also serves as a lantern of light to the outdoor patio. The entry vestibule is constructed in cast-in-place concrete which compresses the space before entering into the main living space. These shifts in tone, pattern, and volume create a hierarchy from formal to informal, from dark to light, and from enclosed to open.