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A farmhouse, garden, swimming pool, pool house, wine making rooms and carport are nestled among 20 acres of rolling topography planted with grape vines. The place will be a retreat for a large San Francisco family seeking peace and quiet and a return to a simpler lifestyle. The house is inspired by the simplicity and vernacular detailing of historic American farmhouses and is surrounded by a roofed and trellised porch on all four sides. The figurative hearth of the building is a stained wood core of space that occupies the center of the house, serves as a threshold between the foyer and living room and contains a library and the stair hall. The coziness of this core embodies the warmth of the gatherings the building houses. The pool house, wine space and carport are pavilions in the landscape. They are covered by two mirrored, corrugated metal shed roofs and are inspired by the barns and sheds that are typical of the valley in which the house is sited. An open space is straddled by the structures and frames a view of the landscape beyond. The walls of the parking structure and wine space are clad in materials which express the functions within. The carport walls are treated as a layered collage of solids and voids using a combination of painted siding, stained plywood, exposed studs and stained cedar boarding giving the building a whimsical and highly functional quality- hiding cars, while framing nicer views beyond. The walls of the wine space are reminiscent of wine barrels made of dark red cedar and articulated with steel strapping at the windows and corners. Large windows and doors on the pool house are concealed behind sliding barn doors when the space is vacant. When occupied, they slide past the footprint of the building anchoring the building to its site and defining the entry sequence. TOP |
© 2004-07 LOCUS Architecture, Ltd.