Published September 28, 2008 (link)
Architecture is, by definition, site-specific. In some buildings, however, the idea of site transcends the physicality of landscape to engage with the environment on multiple levels — emotional, spiritual, conceptual. For example, the guesthouse that the architect Brad Cloepfil designed for a couple of art collectors in upstate New York doesn’t just sit nicely next to a bubbling brook, in its bucolic, sun-dappled setting. With its articulated steel frame and sleek wood paneling, the 1,200-square-foot house plays off its densely wooded hillside setting, flipping back and forth between shelter and openness, protection and enclosure, inside and out.
‘‘We spent a lot of time just reading the landscape,’’ says Cloepfil, who was commissioned to design not just the guesthouse but also the main house and an art barn. The architect walked around all 350 acres of this hilly, winding property, siting the main house (which is still under construction) first and situating the guesthouse just down the road but completely out of view. The land itself was a big inspiration. ‘‘The meadows look almost like they’re carved out of the forest,’’ Cloepfil says, describing the trees as a ‘‘field of black lines against the foliage.’’
The house’s layout is straightforward: an entry foyer opens up into a living-dining space surrounded by windows; a sliver of a kitchen opens off a long hallway lined with floor-to-ceiling cabinets; and there are two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. Outside is another story: the living spaces are nestled into a folded steel frame that cantilevers out over the sloping site, becoming both open and yet enclosed. Cloepfil created the geometric frame first, then added walls where he wanted to create rooms. Through all of it, the architect points out, ‘‘there’s an ambiguity.’’
This ambiguity informs the entire project; the dual nature of the building is a subtle expression of the pleasures and travails of being a houseguest. (‘‘Welcome! But don’t stay too long.’’ ‘‘Our house is your house, but really it’s our house.’’) Even the concrete bridge to the entrance, by the artist Lawrence Weiner, is inscribed with opaque messages. ‘‘It was about using a structure to describe a domain,’’ Cloepfil says about the house. ‘‘You feel the tenuousness of being there.’’
The house’s position on the site underscores it. From the front, it appears solid and anchored to the hillside, further grounded by a series of mirrored pedestals — the owners’ idea — that reflect the surrounding ferns, which were planted by the landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh. (The pedestals add a moment of glamour to the otherwise restrained building.) From another angle, however, the house floats precariously out over the hillside, a big and seemingly impossible cantilever.
‘‘It wants to be a place that protects you and holds you,’’ says Cloepfil, who at the same time wanted the house to dissolve visually. He compares it to a treehouse, which gets you close to nature while sheltering you from it. ‘‘It was really thrilling to me to be able to do something that pure, strong, clear and simple,’’ Cloepfil adds.
Not bad for a walk in
the woods.
