This bijou Sonoma County home is in sync with the panorama

To say that this Sonoma County home attracts closely on its context can be an understatement. Designed by San Francisco-based studio Schwartz and Structure, led by founder Neal Schwartz, the house could also be small in dimension, however is massive in persona. Created for a non-public shopper in darkish hues and low traces, it blends nods to the pure panorama, hints of modernist and minimalist structure and supreme, Twenty first-century performance. Leit Home, because the dwelling is titled, was conceived to specific its environment in architectural type. 

Leit Home: a bijou Sonoma County home

In designing Leit Home, Schwartz and his staff studied the native topography, to ensure the brand new home sits in concord with its setting. On this, color was essential. ‘Hundreds of thousands of years in the past, the volcanoes of Sonoma Valley, California, spewed sizzling magma throughout the panorama. Because the lava shortly cooled, the eruption’s gases turned trapped, forming porous cavities as an alternative of crystallising into dense stone,’ the staff writes. ‘These blackened rocks – rhyolite, basalt, andesite, and pumice – nonetheless dot the valley panorama immediately, shocking of their lightness regardless of all appearances.’

The home, at lower than 80 sq m, is definitely boutique, within the context of its style within the nation, however intelligent structure and openings guarantee it makes up for its bijou dimension in good design options. Simplicity is the secret, with the house internally composed of a protracted service core, and a single, open, multifunction residing house. Clear surfaces and slim volumes underline a sense of lightness and an uncluttered method – regardless of the blackened volcanic rock references in its sculptural general type. 

Charred oak cladding hints on the fires which have devastated the area within the latest previous. ‘[It] stays a logo of this resilient panorama,’ the architects write, referring to the blackened Shou Sugi Ban siding of the house. 

On the identical time, the vast openings that immediately take within the Californian panorama, are balanced by giant roof overhangs that shield from the new solar and navigate any local weather challenges. The house’s restricted materials palette additionally works in the direction of that, permitting the views of nature and the expertise of being within the wild to take centre stage. 

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