To call architect Colin Flavin’s three-story steel-frame structure with mahogany slat screens a “garage” would be misleading. While there’s room for parking and a Vespa workshop behind the double-wide red door on the ground floor, the spaces above feel and function more like a country retreat. “The clients wanted something innovative to complement their traditional Dutch Colonial,” says Flavin, principal of Flavin Architects. “A bit like a garden folly.”

The new building in Kathy and Ed Kelly’s backyard in Wellesley, Massachusetts, conceived to replace a ramshackle garage, also offers a sheltered outdoor gathering place, an indoor study, and a rooftop garden, all with contemplative connections to the landscape.

A boulder in front, tipped up just so, lends the aura of a Zen garden. Sunlight streams through the screens, leaving rhythmic patterns on the stucco walls of the covered porch. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the air-conditioned study frame the wooded view and allow the couple to see through to the side yard beyond. On top, flowers and vegetables thrive in wood and aluminum planters.

“We’ve gotten great feedback about the structure from the community. We stepped it down and set it back, so it became more interesting than aggressive.”
—Colin Flavin, architect

Flavin found inspiration for the roof deck in the roof terrace of Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret’s 1931 masterpiece. Rather than leave the third level completely exposed, Flavin continued the steel frame upward to reinforce the idea of an outdoor room. “It’s as though you left out the windows and could add glass later,” he says. “But hopefully not.”

Landscape architect H. Keith Wagner nestled the building into the site, which required substantial regrading, and helped devise the circulation scheme. Granite stairs run behind the front boulder, going from the driveway to a wide granite terrace at the back of the house.

Low wood steps tucked behind a Cor-Ten steel planter lead to the new building’s second level, and a third, industrial-style staircase at the back ascends to the roof deck. “It’s utilitarian, like a fire stair, but also playful, like a climbing structure,” Flavin says. “There’s a ‘Look, Ma, no hands’ thing happening.”

One of Kathy’s favorite features is that the screen’s transparency changes depending on your angle of approach. Flavin admits he can’t take credit for the effect. “That’s just what happens with slats,” he says. “It’s fun and serendipitous.”

The architect also notes that the screens don’t stretch across the entire front or back of the building. Instead, he “peeled” them back to reveal the structure’s bones. “People say it looks like it may not be finished, and they wonder how we might continue with what we’ve done,” he says. “To bring forth that element of imagination is wonderful.”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Flavin Architects / @flavinarchitects

Construction: Brookes + Hill CustomBuilders / @brookesandhillcustom

Structural Engineering: Webb Structural Services

Civil Engineering: Columbia Design Group

Landscape Architecture: Wagner HodgsonLandscape Architecture / @wagnerhodgson

Structural Steel: Kelley Welding

Styling: Sierra

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