PENNGROVE, CA
Since this house’s family is a close one, the kids’
bedrooms are multi-purpose, one is the movie watching room as well, and the
other is the library and community office. By making spaces that are usually
single purpose into multipurpose spaces, a relatively compact house can provide
more functions and bring people into each other’s lives in the process.
Mom’s room, however, is uniquely hers and unique single purpose.
It has a bathroom suite that is designed to have all the delightful fixtures of
a spa, and all the elegance too, but within a compact area. A space of purity
and purpose is created for each activity, so that the space of showering is
truly only for showering – there are no toothbrushes, no toilet paper, just
stone, glass, hot water, towels, and so much steam you can’t see your hand in
front of you. A unique feature the client asked for was a fully retractable
skylight above her bed for stargazing in comfort, you got it.
The building is
stretched along the hillside so that each floor can have large openings to face
the valley view. This narrow footprint provides opportunity for effective cross
ventilation and very effective floor plans that minimize circulation spaces,
and by stepping each floor backwards we honor the hill and create terraces in
the process. For privacy, and to elevate the landscape to the level of the
building, vertical gardens surround the decks and connect the house to the land
it emerges from.