Magnificent Naturally-Cooled Residence

Terry & Terry Architecture
San Francisco Bay, USA

Terry & Terry Architecture rebuilt an existing home damaged in a 1991 Oakland fire as a beautiful residence offering staggering views of San Francisco Bay. The architects designed Skyline House for a young family who wanted an open-plan home with ample ventilation to provide natural cooling.

The house sits on a property dominated by large redwood trees, which inspired the use of timber cladding and other natural materials. The designers started off by working with the existing floor plan. They transformed the kitchen area to open out and lead to the front yard garden with an outdoor dining area.

The home is situated to take advantage of the bay breezes and the interior roofline flows to both convey the breezes through the home and to recreate the appearance of undulating fog.

A wooden tube-like envelope hugs the open common space and visually connects the garden to the front viewing deck at the rear. This form takes advantage of the winds to facilitate natural ventilation, with the main living space acting as a connection between two contrasting outdoor spaces.

Frameless windows and doors systems for a spectular view: www.mestreraposa.com

Mediterranean Beach House with Stainless Windows

By BLANKPAGE Architects, Aamchit, Lebanon

Conceived as a layering of decks, the beach house seeks to maximize its relationship with the sea through a visual and compositional celebration of horizontality in general and the mediterranean horizon in particular.

The slabs are held by a minimal steel structure made of equally sized square columns on a regular module, as well as a discreet glass enclosure with and wooden louvers in varying horizontal and vertical rhythms allowing for a relative level of privacy and shade.

Given the inclined nature of the site, the house is approached by car on the street level just below the upper deck. At the external landing entrance, the circulation interconnects the three levels of the house. The upper platform contains the master bedroom that opens up on an elongated lap pool and expansive sun deck.

The middle platform houses two bedrooms and a family living. Finally, the lower deck serves as a reception area that extends outdoors towards the sea through an infinity pool as well as a staircase to the shore.

In addition to the inner circulation core, a smooth promenade formed by a system of external ramps and staircases connects the platforms, linking the various levels of the rocky landscape that stretches between the street all the way to the sea.

The rhythms of the steel structure, wooden decking and louver systems create a multiplicity of overlapping patterns of shadows that vary in direction and length all through that vary in direction and length all through the day rendering the simple structure at once complex and alive.

At the particular moment of the sunset, the house, oriented almost due west at the elevation that faces the sea, acts as photographic diaphragm that invites the rays of the setting sun into the depths of the house, dashing the prototypical spaces in a horizontal glow of deep red.

Stainless Steel Windows, highly resistant, particularly suitable for use in coastal areas:
www.mestreraposa.com