Architect Kyu Sung Woo’s new home is not the only contemporary dwelling on the leafy Cambridge street where Colonials mingle with Victorians. It’s not even the only one Kyu Sung designed. There’s also the daring-for-its-time Harvard University faculty compound from the mid-1980s and the brazen, postmodern house the Seoul-born architect built for his family in 1989. Fifteen years after moving in, Kyu Sung and his wife, concert pianist Jung-Ja Kim, acquired the lot next door. They expanded their garden but otherwise left the property alone for 10 years, pondering what would come next.

In 2014, the couple decided to downsize and create a new, smaller home on that lot just for themselves. And although both are highly mobile and neither is retired, they also wanted to address accessibility concerns, which they did by incorporating an elevator, for example. “This is a house for senior life,” says the architect, who turned 80 this year.

The 3,687-square-foot house, named House II and completed in 2019, has a slim profile, full-height glass walls, and an angular roof that references the sloping site. While the design of the first house, which was inspired by Korean courtyard homes, was about retreating to defined interior spaces, the design of the new one is about forging connections within a flexible interior as well as with the landscape and the city beyond it. “In a sense, House I was introverted and House II is extroverted,” Kyu Sung says.

“When you build a house next to where you’re living and look at it all the time, it’s a different process. It’s unusual for an architect to watch the site every day.”
—Kyu Sung Woo, architect and resident

A few key features express Kyu Sung’s vision of flexible connectivity. Large floor-to-ceiling doors that slide or swing open allow the couple to expand spaces or close them off for separation. The first-floor living area, for instance, opens on two sides to the deck, and a giant pocket door can expose the kitchen. On the second floor, two en suite bedrooms and Jung-Ja’s practice room fan out around the staircase, elevator, and landing.

In the basement, triangular light wells that cut through the building brighten Kyu Sung’s studio and grant another type of connection: “It’s nice to be able to shout and hear each other,” Kyu Sung says, noting it was a challenge to even find each other in the other house, which was more than 5,000 square feet. Still owned by the Woos, House I is currently being rented to a foundation.

House II’s pared-down aesthetic contributes to a sense of well-being. White ash floors, stairs, and wall panels, plus bands of glass and angled planes washed with sun from skylights, create a cocoon-like atmosphere. One feels good in this house—embraced, supported, soothed. However, when Kyu Sung speaks of the home, he emphasizes the benefits derived beyond its walls. “I learned from my mother that connecting to the outside world is very important in older age,” he says. “When you’re younger, you have a family. Later you need to connect to the city and nature.”

While second-floor windows offer views of the neighborhood and the city beyond, Kyu Sung asked his friend and frequent collaborator, landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, to design a garden for connecting with nature. The pair have been working together for 30 years on such projects as House I and the award-winning Harvard graduate housing complex at 10 Akron Street. Both cite their strong sense of the other’s aesthetics as facilitating a working relationship that requires minimal back-and-forth.

“I like open-ended, lively landscapes that are incomplete and unresolved. They let you have your own reaction and interpretation.”
—Michael Van Valkenburgh, landscape architect

Van Valkenburgh designed a garden that is essentially a single path surrounding the L-shaped ipe deck that runs along the east side of the house and then wraps around the back. Kyu Sung thinks of the deck as “the mediator between the building and the landscape,” a concept he explored when he designed a retreat in Vermont for his family in 2008. The garden is also meant to encourage short strolls, especially for Jung-Ja, who spends hours a day at the piano.

Rather than taking a minimalist approach, Van Valkenburgh devised a complex range of ever-changing episodes. More than 60 plant species bloom sequentially, revealing new color combinations every three months. “The experience of moving through the garden is cinematic,” he says.

The terrain feels as dynamic as the foliage, thanks to ground surfaces that unfold into each other. At the start of the path, tightly organized bricks soon dissolve into a scattered arrangement, the hard material transitioning to decomposed granite. The bricks come together again at the top of six steps blanketed in pine needles and land on a raw schist slab hugged by ferns.

Gently graded steps covered in pine needles wander through the home’s L-shaped garden, designed by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh. A six-foot-tall wooden fence shields the garden from the street, adding to the feeling of refuge. “The idea behind the garden is the opposite of minimalism,” says Van Valkenburgh. “It’s about complexity and a range of experiences and shifts. These are what make it absorbing.” " layout="" credit="Photo by Tony Luong" photoUserId="6133533642405580800"/>

Eleven more pine needle–strewn steps descend to the back garden, where the bricks trail lazily around a center swale studded with an early-blooming yellow magnolia tree. Following the trail feels like taking a contemplative journey. When presented with this idea, Van Valkenburgh says, “‘Journey’ might be too grand a word—more like a soulful breath.”

The garden, the couple agree, is the essence of House II. The building’s synchronicity with the landscape exponentially enhances the design. “The changing scenery of the garden, with its lush leaves and new flowers, provides a backdrop for our daily lives,” Kyu Sung says. “It is a reinvigorating experience.”

More than 60 plant species were used in the layered design. " layout="wide" credit="Photo by Tony Luong" photoUserId="6133533642405580800"/>

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Kyu Sung Woo Architects

Construction: Stack + Co. / @stack.and.co

Structural Engineering: RSE Associates

Civil Engineering: Sherwood Consulting & Design

Landscape Design: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates / @mvva.inc

Lighting Design: Nathalie Faubert

MEP Engineering: Sun Engineering

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An Architect’s Slim Home Emphasizes the Outdoors and Aging in Place