HONORS:
- AIA California Design Award
- Marin County Platinum Sustainable
- FEMA Best Practice
- "Prince of Tides," Dwell Magazine
- "The Most Beautiful Houses in America"
SITE:
- Built: Stinson Beach, CA
- Prototype: global flood hazard zones
- Hazards: seismic and tsunami
DESIGN:
- Innovative hybrid prefab adaptable to context
- House remains functional during wave action
TECHNOLOGY:
- New cost-efficient floating foundation
- Passive solar design with floating sun court
- Ground floor walls retractable into docks
- Optional star-gazing roof / emergency hatch
HONORS:
- AIA New Jersey Design Award
- USGBC Resilience Exemplar
SITE:
- High flood hazard zone, northern NJ
DESIGN:
- LEED Hybrid Prefab, hurricane-resistant design
- Ground floor open for flood or lounge area
- Maximized views over Atlantic Ocean
- Passive solar and natural ventilation
TECHNOLOGY:
- Innovative high-strength frame over piers
- Missile-impact glazing, super-insulated walls
- Articulations and setbacks reduce wind loads
- Cost-efficient hollowed concrete foundation
- No-VOC finishes, 100% FSC-certified woods
- Drains to cistern for rainwater harvesting
The cantilevered Wing House presents itself quietly on the street, and dramatically hovers over the beach in a pure white steel structure set on intermittent concrete fins.
The central living room stretches gracefully under an invisible fifty-foot beam enabling fully retractable glass walls facing the garden and pool.
The inside-outside space is backdropped by a curved concrete wall off which cantilevers a steel and stone stair. Light from above dapples the smooth concrete and textured stone surfaces.
SITE AND PROGRAM: Accessory Dwelling Unit for an art collector in a Wurster House garden, a quarter mile from the Hayward Fault
DESIGN: Modest footprint with inside-out courts allows for an efficient building permit without neighborhood review, and enables a phased building expansion. The open plan is surrounded by clerestories viewing the surrounding tree canopy.
TECHNOLOGY: A roof diaphragm floats atop an earthquake-proof steel column structure, set above a thickened edge slab-on-grade with radiant heating. The concrete foundation is lightly incised into the hillside, creating a rear retaining wall to divert rainwater.
The Shift House questions the suburban grid, superimposing two adjacent grids, resulting in shifting perspectives inside and out.
The lightweight upper floor hovers on travertine-clad structural fins, allowing ground floor glass walls to fully retract to pool and garden views.
The house facades weave together stucco and cedar, wrapping around the shifted grids, creating a new fluid space of infinite angles that open gracefully to the expansive private gardens, tennis court, and pool with sunken fire pit.
SITE:
- South Bay hillside with views north to San Francisco
DESIGN:
- An old ranch house is reduced to its foundation, then doubled in size with perpendicular buttress walls, and opened to bay views, hovering above shallow reflecting pools with deeper koi basins.
- The entry dematerializes against the oaks, providing a continually changing light box dappling in the light of the moving water.
TECHNOLOGY:
- Fire-resistant concrete surround, entry pools, and drought-tolerant planting
- Cost-efficient new structural additions and stucco volumes, with quality accents of cedar, ipe, and stone.
The Wrap House utilizes a shell-like roof wrapper, a lightweight exoskeleton enclosing sheltered view rooms. During high-wind events, hidden hurricane shutters roll out from the exterior frame, and the house transforms itself like a hermit crab. Twisting back and forth along the street facade, the wrapper inverts itself into a pure set of parallel roofs echoing the beach and horizon.
The ground floor is clad in limestone like the ocean’s calcium deposits, while the upper floors evoke floating driftwood and sails. The central living room reaches up two stories, traversed by nautical bridges supporting retractable glass doors, bringing the sound and light of the ocean inside.
PROGRAM:
- New house and interior pool
DESIGN:
- A pure stucco facade zig-zags along the entry, containing walkways and dramatizing volumes
- Acute angles are reminiscent of the surrounding historic embattlements
- Travertine cladding creates a plinth for the ephemeral stucco spaces above
TECHNOLOGY:
- Cost-efficient stucco with thin-set travertine
- Custom oak window frame accents
PROGRAM:
-Subterranean gallery, pool, and wine cellar
DESIGN:
-Excavation as addition, natural earth insulation
-Maintain existing views, use unearthed stone
TECHNOLOGY:
-Independently operable terra-cotta and glass retractable walls
-Excavated sandstone retaining walls, landscaped steps
-Underground concrete wine cellar core
-Polished and rough travertine floors
The Inside Out House superimposes two geometries, one generated from the program, inside-out, the other from the landscape, outside-in. The wrapping forms zig-zag to create a green origami roof folded around a central light court.
The site is framed by low concrete garden retaining walls, excavated walkways and falling water from the pool edge reflecting in the underground rooms. The house above hovers cloudlike in a lightweight steel structure and porcelain cladding, quiet from the street and virtuosic in the private gardens.
The upper floors contain bedrooms and views over the surrounding gardens to the distant horizon of water. The lower floors provide inside-out views to the pool and landscape.
PROGRAM:
New house, office, gardens, and pool
Sacramento, CA
DESIGN:
The new house occupies a small plateau, overlooking a valley of oaks, with a dramatic lake view stretching to the horizon. A travertine pool blurs with the lake, creating an infinite borrowed waterscape.
TECHNOLOGY:
- Ground floor retractable glass walls
- Cantilevered master suite over oak forest
- Passive solar design and photovoltaic glazing
- Second floor volumes are bridged between buttresses, enabling expansive ground floor views.
PUBLICATIONS:
“All Hands on the Deck,” S.F. Chronicle
"Layers of Living," Vancouver Sun
SITE AND PROGRAM:
-Penthouse addition with double-level roof deck
DESIGN:
-Wind-sheltered lower deck with gathering space
-Second level view deck providing bay and city views
-Evening reception area with kitchen and screening area
TECHNOLOGY:
-Louvered west windscreens to eliminate turbulence
-Cantilevered penthouse roof over glass entry
-Media closet with concealed projector
-Fire-resistant ipe decking
ATLANTIC | PACIFIC COASTS
AIA CA and NJ Awards - USGBC Resilience Exemplar
LEED Certifications - Platinum Sustainability
Cantilevered Floors - Floating Foundations
Earthquake - Flood - Hurricane-Resistance
CALIFORNIA | TUSCANY
Gravity Fermentation
Passive Solar
Earth Sheltered
Cast Stone
Terracotta
SITE:
- A wooded plateau above a small harbor with views to Manhattan and Long Island
DESIGN:
- A dramatic, floating ocean view facade is balanced with a quiet entry facade sheltered in the woods
- Strong horizontal lines gesture to the horizon, punctuated by a two-level living room nestled in the tall trees
- The soaring nautical design echoes the sailboat harbor below, while the plateau geology is accentuated by the pool and limestone terraces
TECHNOLOGY:
- Cantilevered roof decks provide vertical outdoor living
- Passive solar overhangs and natural ventilation
- Two-way central chimney/mechanical/elevator core
- Super-insulating glass reflects heat, maximizes views
LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL
Hurricane-Proof Houses - New Jersey
Prefab Condos - Capitola
University Library - Italy
Modular Housing - Brooklyn
Multifamily Housing - Santa Cruz
Mixed-Use Infill - Florence
Modular Live/Work - Hunters Point
University of Venice - Fulbright Grant
Vertical Garden Towers - New York
New Downtown Center - San Francisco
Urban Campus - Silicon Valley
Ski Hotel - Lake Tahoe