"Radical sustainability

While the house’s original pine is richly colored and textured, a number of structural posts rendered the kitchen difficult to furnish with modern fixtures. A newly-added black beam, which extends outward into the dining room, allowed for the posts’ removal.

The house has two modules: a living space on the left and a utilities, laundry, and outdoor kitchen on the right.

"By keeping the main color block in the showers, we tried to contain the chaos to a small and palatable space within the bathroom," Cooper says. "It's fun when you're in there, but you're not overwhelmed when using the bathroom for other purposes."

Opposite the master bedroom on the top floor lies the sunny kids’ bedroom. A double-sided wardrobe provides storage, and functionally divides two separate sleeping areas. Further storage is placed along the window wall that faces the backyard.

The Wally's price is especially competitive considering a one-time installation that will last over ten years—though, as connected home technology progresses so rapidly, it’s hard to know whether this kind of system will be relevant then. Inarguably, though, water damage will be a recurring issue for homeowners, making it likely that a prevention system is worth the spend.

Even the shower embraces the neutral palette.

In the bathroom, the shower stall looks up to the open sky.

The two bathrooms are sited on either end of the rectangular plan. Each have been fitted with discrete skylights for additional illumination.

Simple brass screws affix the bathroom’s antibacterial copper cladding, reclaimed from a barn roof in Connecticut, to the walls. Bronze screen frames, salvaged from buildings on Shope’s Amenia property and then cut into small decorative strips, line the bathroom door frame.

A look at the couple's adjoining bathroom.

"We wanted this to be a fully-immersive environment in and out of the shower," Cooper says. His team decided to create a custom terrazzo based off of the same material that was found during demolition.

The cedar plywood paneling used throughout the project adds a mellow quality to the light. The dropped fiberglass screen recalls an outdoor shower, but also provides privacy. The materials were chosen for their texture, weathering characteristics, durability, and organic appearance — while fiberglass may not actually be natural, says architect Lance Herbst, the type used here, with its visible fibers, has a natural quality. The basin is Metrix, and the shower curtain by Catherine David.

"Shane enjoys both cooking and entertaining so we maximized the counter space to make meal prep and hosting easy," Priftaj says. "It was also very important that the kitchen include a gas grill so he could quickly and conveniently grill without having to climb up five flights of stairs to use the bbq on the patio." Priftaj selected high-gloss acrylic white cabinets from bulthaup's b3 line with an aluminum backsplash and b3 prism drawer system to keep things tidy. A Wolf hood and gas cooktop with chargrill give Carslake the flexibility he desired for indoor grilling. The counters are polished white quartz.

Named after its rooftop photovoltaic panels, the Solar Studio is the first completed build in NODE’s customizable Trillium Series.

A large rock from the property provides seating in the shower.

“The central vision was threefold: interiors that would bring the family joy, support their daily activities, and provide specific areas of refuge for each member and as a family,” says Chenault, who integrated a Hansgrohe Axor rain shower in the master bath, which has frosted glass.

The standing shower is set off by etched-glass panels supported by stainless-steel hardware. There is no threshold; instead, the tile within the shower zone slopes down very slightly to a floor trough with a custom stainless-steel grille. Along the wall, a Corian shelf—“the longest soap dish in the world,” resident Don Evans jokes—runs the length of the space.

A shaft of sunlight streams into the marble shower, through a glass atrium that connects the master suite to the outdoors while maintaining privacy; the fixtures are by Vola.

A courtyard off the master bath acts as a solar chimney, drawing in cool air and bringing light and ventilation into the shower. The fixture is from Hansgrohe. - Rockport, Massachusetts Dwell Magazine : November / December 2017

Walls are covered in Fireclay tile in Navy Blue. The vanity has a custom concrete basin by Newbold Stone Architectural Concrete and steel base from Metal Works Austin. The custom steel shelf and steel-edged mirror are paired with a perforated pendant by Allied Maker.

The grey tones on the wall are separated by a dark red smalto stripe. The faucet is from Officina Nicolazzi and the lights are Tooy.

The bathroom is fitted with pine plywood and minimally decorated with framed photographs.

In the bathroom behind the closet, Samantha embedded charcoal in the stucco for a velvety texture. Skylights by Velux introduce patterns throughout the day. “I wanted to focus the light in very precise ways,” says Samantha.

The master bath is a simple rectangle. “Like the kitchen, I designed it so that no stuff was laying around,” Erik said. The surfaces are natural and subdued; a simple palette of tones, colors, and materials unifies the space. Travertine marble was used on the floors, shower, and countertop. The closet and cabinetry are maple. Erik designed the light fixture himself because, he says, “there was nothing I could find that fit the scale of the room.” He used cold-rolled steel with exposed wires to give it an industrial feel.

For the bathroom design, Ann was inspired by a visit to Dunton Hot Springs in Colorado years ago, where there was a tree indoors. Here, a staghorn fern hangs over the bathtub. Talavera Tile by Reeso tile in San Antonio covers the tub front and floor, and the window covering is a Pojagi-style curtain bought off Etsy.

Despite the cast-on-site concrete dividers, there's still an airy sense of space; the dividers support, instead of overwhelm. This approach came from the architects' constant sense of experimentation and playfulness, a deliberate approach that helped them find new ways to use recycled and salvaged materials.

“Keeping the kitchen and bathrooms simple saved money for the important things,” Harkness explains. They went with a soothing color palette and hardware from Reece.

There’s more concealed storage in the bathroom, this time clad in wooden tile so it blends in with the wall treatment. The flooring is terrazzo tile.

"It was supposed to be as naked as possible," says Alexandru Popescu, one of the members of R3Architetti who helped design and build the 3 Vaults apartment. "The furniture is absolutely included in the architecture; it’s more like an indoor landscape instead of a typical open plan." The kitchen exemplifies their approach, with textured concrete walls contrasting with wood panels and salvaged industrial lighting. The table, custom built by R3Architetti, is made in part from pipes procured from one of their fathers, a plumber.

The showers are clad in ceramic tiles painted to celebrate native plants and flowers.