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Looking into the warm, brightly lit house at night offers a different kind of view, one that charmingly recalls the cutaway dioramas in Wes Anderson’s films.

Renovation

In this house in downtown Miami, lightweight, shuttered Western red cedar doors wrap the front porch to provide privacy and protection from the weather but support natural ventilation, which is important in biophilic design. The unstained wood will age naturally.

Using prefabricated materials for the exterior allowed Koehler and his team to drastically reduce building time during the construction phase. Cross-laminated timber panels (CLT), laser cut in the factory and assembled at the site within two weeks, add structure and aesthetic interest to the top of the home.

“The house is a piece of origami made out of triangular shapes, which we then draped over the landscape,” says Arbel.

The rear garden looks into the kitchen and dining space right through the internal courtyard and beyond.

Entry

The team carried the concept of contrast through the exterior, juxtaposing the home’s 125-year-old red brick façade with vertical, black-stained cedar cladding at the back. “We wanted to celebrate the old alongside the new,” Dubbeldam says. Since the house is so well insulated, the extra heat that dark exteriors typically draw doesn’t penetrate beyond the boards’ surface.

The upper levels of the six-bedroom, four-bathroom Mountain House feature large picture windows that offer sweeping valley views.

The Rumspringa is clad with wood siding and a galvanized metal roof.

The concrete foundation was poured on top of a rock outcropping, so that the house would feel like part of the natural features of the site.

Built on a tight budget of $120,000, a retirement home in the mountains delivers unexpected contemporary design to a rural township.

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