2013
LOW/RISE HOUSE
MENLO PARK, CA
2014 AIA SMC Award.
The Low/Rise House reimagines the suburban housing type through interlocking bars of shared and private program. The composition re-appropriates the traditional forms of the California ranch house and farm tower as tools of environmental performance and social interaction, deployed to create variable density, natural ventilation, solar energy generation, day-lighting, and immersion into the site. The building can effectively shut down various program spaces, allowing for an intimate feeling (and low energy consumption) when inhabited by a single person, but allows for a spacious and integrated configuration for ten. The structure is long, low, and narrow, settling into the treelined landscape and allowing yards to surround and permeate each room. The landscape design is generative, informing the layout of the building and creating interior spaces that are suspended within the landscape. A 3-story tower and roof deck emerges among vibrant evergreens, providing a unique vantage point of the surrounding townscape. Through an integral relationship between form and material, the structure responds sensitively to site, nature, and neighborhood.
The Low/Rise House reimagines the suburban housing type through interlocking bars of shared and private program. The composition re-appropriates the traditional forms of the California ranch house and farm tower as tools of environmental performance and social interaction, deployed to create variable density, natural ventilation, solar energy generation, day-lighting, and immersion into the site. The building can effectively shut down various program spaces, allowing for an intimate feeling (and low energy consumption) when inhabited by a single person, but allows for a spacious and integrated configuration for ten. The structure is long, low, and narrow, settling into the treelined landscape and allowing yards to surround and permeate each room. The landscape design is generative, informing the layout of the building and creating interior spaces that are suspended within the landscape. A 3-story tower and roof deck emerges among vibrant evergreens, providing a unique vantage point of the surrounding townscape. Through an integral relationship between form and material, the structure responds sensitively to site, nature, and neighborhood.
