SKY ARC RESIDENCE*

Private Residence
Kentfield, California
completed in 2002
* work performed while employed with will bruder+partners

The crescent plan of this house derives its form from topography and landscape—embedded in its site and analogous to the gentle curvature of the Northern California hills. The simple volumes, clad in pre-weathered pewter-grey zinc, recede into the texture of the surrounding landscape. The house is a choreography of light and shadow, of exterior and interior, and private and public spaces. Descending from the entry above, a framed bay view introduces the visitor to the house and its natural surroundings. The sense of movement—past window seats, through doors, across rooms—carries a sensual freshness and continuity throughout the house. The main sitting room expands seamlessly to a cantilevered wood deck and lawn terrace; boundaries dissolve into the landscape through perforated metal railings and translucent fiberglass awnings.

This is an architecture formed of its site, an abstraction blended with the tone and topography of its natural context, deferring to the sublime wooded garden site. It is conceived as an enfolding nest to embrace the family and their habitation of house and landscape. Through shifting patterns of light, weather and seasons, the house becomes a place of continual engagement.