Sea Ranch Meadow 2 Residence

Project Description

Located alongside a Sea Ranch hedgerow, the gently sloping site opens to a meadow and Pacific Ocean views.  The form of the house takes its shape from the slope of the land and the neighboring house above it, to which it is linked by a pass through and garden path.

The main living volume is nestled into its site, with the roof sloping down to a large horizontal sweep of retractable sliding doors and a corner window seat that emphasize the broad view.  Diagonally opposite the roof stretches up to a tall set of corner windows that frame the existing stand of fir trees.  A small corner skylight marks the passage of time throughout the day.

The cedar clapboard ceiling brings a three-dimensional crafted quality to the space and keeps the ceiling feeling light, masking the heavily insulated roof above.  The photovoltaic array provides more power than the house currently uses, and the stone floor provides insulted thermal mass to keep the house comfortable throughout the day.

Design Challenge

It was a challenge to figure out how best to connect the house to the existing residence, which was also designed by our firm.  The two lots are situated adjacent to one another, but the owners didn’t purchase the second lot until years after the first house was built.  In fact, when the existing house was designed the guest house was strategically sited at the edge of the lot to maximize privacy from the neighboring lot. Our solution was to link the two houses by opening a passage through the existing guesthouse, to let the garden sweep through the structure, linking the two properties.  The deck in the new pass through extends as a small, raised wood walkway between the existing fir trees, stepping down into the front garden of the new house.  On the meadow side the forms of the bedroom bay windows step down with the slope of the land, visually linking the old and new structures in a neighborly fashion. Another focus of the design was to bring a tectonic quality to the construction of the ceiling.  The roof is constructed with full depth insulation in order to achieve the highest energy efficiency for the house.  This didn’t allow for any of the ceiling structure to remain exposed, so we looked for other ways to bring a constructed quality to the ceiling.  The cedar clapboard ceiling brings a three-dimensional crafted quality to the space and keeps the ceiling feeling light, masking the heavily insulated roof above.

Physical Context

The design responds both to the natural topography of the site and to the larger context of the Sea Ranch hedgerows, meadows and the built context of the neighboring houses. The overall form of the house takes its shape from the slope of the land and the floor steps down with the contours.  The bedroom form continues the existing architectural vocabulary of the adjacent house and reinforces the neighborhood context.  The main living volume is nestled into its site, with the roof sloping down to a large horizontal sweep of retractable sliding doors that open to the meadow and emphasize the broad view to the Pacific Ocean.  Diagonally opposite the roof slopes up to a tall set of corner windows that frame the existing stand of fir trees.  A small corner skylight marks the passage of time throughout the day.  The garage composition slopes down to the street to complete the gesture of bedroom roof and the long sloping roof in the main living volume.