A Modern house Nestled in a quiet street in the Bay area, behind a wooded perimeter, it is an unsuspected architectural wonder. A wavy grass and a high and broken herb attract towards the main house, a structure composed of volumes of concrete, steel and glass. A glowing Olympic pool extends through the backyard. A high steel catwalk leads to the main door.
A star team was needed to design from scratch this Modern house Lasseño relative. The clients commissioned the architecture of Tom Kundig, of the company AD100 Olson Kundig, based in Seattle, while the designer of AD100 Nicole Hollis, based in San Francisco, conceived the interiors, high but cozy. «For them it is a house forever,» says Kundig, «see her as multigenerational.»
Customers, who have four children, wanted to build a contemporary house that promoted inner-exterior life, including sports clues to support their active lifestyle. They had already worked with Tom in a house in Hawaii and wanted to continue the collaboration.
Built with shaped concrete, steel and glass panels with the support of Dowbuilt, the exterior of the modern house is designed to complement the wavy landscape – directed by Andrea Cochran Landscape Architects – and foster a fluid transition between the Interior and outside. Floor floor windows are not just an ornament: many of the walls open to the grass in areas of being to free air. Kundig also added three small reflective ponds around the perimeter of the house, both to reflect the sunlight on the walls and the surrounding vegetation and to cool the air. «I think the most interesting thing about a house is how it reacts abroad,» says Kundig, «so the materials are intentionally simple.»
It can be a challenge to accommodate large -scale art in a house with so many windows, but Kundig designed the distribution to highlight the Art collection of the client strategically large walls in spaces where they did not interrupt the flow of the plant.
«It is not a lot of small walls. It is about balancing the views of large windows with the views of the big walls,» explains Kundig. In the kitchen, for example, in front of Marble Island, an Oscar Murillo painting has space to shine.
Nicole Hollis contributed her high eye to the interiors, devising sophisticated living spaces with subtle color touches. In the middle of the neutral palette And relaxing of the house, there were times when customers asked for «a little more fantasy,» as Hollis explains.
In the formal lounge, a curved blue -green velvet sofa joins a topacio colored orejero chair next to the fireplace, while in the formal dining room, multicolored velvet chairs surround the blackened oak table.
Hollis, known for forging relationships between his clients and artists, commissioned some specific works for the place, including a bronze screen by sculptor David Wiseman, based in Los Angeles, splashed with capricious animal motifs. The piece, which separates the formal dining room from the formal room, is Wiseman's first double -sided screen: «Where we had no walls for art, there was an opportunity for three -dimensional sculpture,» says Hollis.
Hollis explains that Modern house He was also designed thinking about children: «It was important that they had several areas to hang out», from their bedrooms to the Game Room of the Ground Floor, going through a bedroom next to the kitchen where they can do their homework.
Although intentionally small to foster socialization in common areas, children's bedrooms were designed paying special attention to details: «We spend a lot of time to the bedrooms of children and add their personal aesthetics to each room, which was very fun,» adds Hollis.
The main bedroom is a serene space, away from everything, with a palette of Neutral colors and a bed and night tables personalized by Hollis. The curtains decorted to reveal a wide view of the pool.
The house is not lacking these perfect views, but Kundig points out that aesthetics is only part of what makes this project unique: «There is an easy transparency between the interior and the outside,» he says. «It's one Modern house Californian; It is what is supposed to be California. «