Paradox House

Company:
S^A | Schwartz and Architecture
860 Rhode Island St
San Francisco, California 94107
(415) 550-0430
https://saasf.com
Contact:
Neal Schwartz
Business Phone: (415) 550-0430

Project Location: Sonoma, CA
Owner: WITHELD

Additional Team:
Contractor: DKG Construction, Inc.
Lighting Design: David Scott Lighting, LLC
Landscape Design: Arterra Landscape Architects
Structural: SMW & Associates, Inc.
Energy Consultant: Morton Green Building Services
Civil Engineer: Bear Flag Engineering, Inc.

Project Description

“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.” ― Niels Bohr

Perhaps inspired by the incongruity of designing a family home in a pandemic over Zoom, or the recognition of the freedom that comes from embracing the often-somber paradoxes of life and work that came out of these times, the home is a model for ‘both-and’ thinking in the face of what appear to be ‘either-or’ options.

The clients are a wonderful paradox: one raised in Iran and the other in South Africa; one more fiery, one cooler; one drawn to order, the other to serendipity; one operating in shades of grey, the other in bold colors. Out of this fascinating dialectic came diametrically opposed intuitions for the siting of the home: one wanting a multistory structure high above the ground to capture mountain views, the other gravitating towards a single-story design firmly grounded in the landscape.

The home comes alive in the extremes of the long shadows of early morning and late afternoon. To nurture the impact of these moments, we reimagined figures from the American painter Edward Hopper, inserting them as the home’s new occupants. Hopper was known for his ‘portraits’ of classic American architecture sitting alone in rugged landscapes, as well as his post-war melancholic take on life in the city. The tension in these spaces among inhabitant, architecture, light, and landscape seems an apt approach to a building, home, and life filled with the richness of paradox.

Design Challenge

The zoning for the property would have allowed a far large development. It was the multiple layers of other regulatory constraints that determined the design. The site is in a long-time neighborhood association created to protect the rural character of Sonoma. As such, a series of wide equestrian easements ring the site, allowing public access throughout the community. We preserved all existing oak groves, as well as an existing seasonal waterway and designated area for a septic system. The local planning department design review then controlled the siting, mass, and material selection. Finally, the uphill neighbor asked the clients to voluntarily preserved their views into and across the existing meadow on the property. Given these often-competing demands, even with a 2.5-acre site, viable design responses were, paradoxically, few.

Physical Context

The site itself is also something of a geological paradox –rocky surface debris obscures a flowing sheet of groundwater from the surrounding hills over expansive volcanic bedrock –a seemingly rugged and stable landscape to build on yet requiring a system of deep drilled piers and grade beams to create a new artificial stable ground. As the only viable structural system, the paradox of both sitting on the land while also hovering above it became a moot; in either case we needed to create our own new stable ground to build on. Thus, the new floating one-story home on piers tucked into existing grade at the rear lawn and hovering over a protected ‘grotto.’ The infinity edge of the upper pool then spills over into the grotto ten feet below to create a cooling waterfall in the more intimate protected space.