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Perched high in the mountains of Big Bear, California, this 1973 A-frame was renovated by Courtney Poulos into a handsome getaway from Los Angeles.

Designed by José Guedes Cruz, César Marques, and Marco Marinho of the Portugal-based firm Guedes Cruz Architects, The Wall House is laid out in an open-box plan, and is fitted with plenty of glass windows to enhance the synergy between its interior and exterior spaces.

The house is about 3,000 square feet with six bedrooms, four of them on the second floor, surrounding a stairway to the large open space below where cooking, dining, game-playing, and movie-watching take place.

Through an integral relationship between use, form, and material, the Low/Rise House responds sensitively to site, nature, and neighborhood, creating a new type of suburban living – both urban and rural.

Tasmania, Australia Dwell Magazine : September / October 2017

The home, clad in natural Australian timber, enjoys a sense of lightness thanks to slender columns that let it float over the dunes. The driveway and entry, at the rear of the building, have an understated design to build to the interior's magnificent ocean views. Firm director Phil Snowdon explains, “By creating an architectural form that draws your eye and leads you up the steep driveway, we could engage new visitors in a welcoming process that first reveals the object and then slowly reveals the main event, being the view."