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Architects: Morris Sato Studio
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Photographs:Matthew Carbone
Text description provided by the architects. YN-13 House is organized on its site as three independent volumes enclosing a courtyard-like space with a swimming pool at its center. The biased cut of the main house’s pitched roof and its protruding corners underscore primary views of the landscape and ocean. Conceived as a buoyant mass and inspired by historic Japanese residential structures in Kyoto and Kanazawa, the house’s unique siding design of western red cedar vertical battens and clapboard merge with the standing seams of the stainless steel roofing to visually unify the wall and roof surfaces.
The exterior’s western red cedar surfaces are expressed in various textures, and become smoother as they move from exterior to interior. Tongue-and-groove siding is used to define outdoor rooms around the pool and the transition from exterior to interior at eaves and terraces. The siding’s visual and tactile qualities elegantly blend the structure with its wooded surroundings, and over the course of a day the bleached siding and terne-coated stainless steel roofing lend the house an aura of both permanence and temporality.
The second level bedrooms are punctured with a series of openings and terraces providing light and views. The western red cedar vertical battens of the façade seamlessly integrate the individual openings and structural posts of the railings into the volume of the structure’s form. On the interior, the open, loft-like first level allows for an uninterrupted diagonal flow of space, and the expansive glazing at the corners connect indoor and outdoor activities. A large interior void joins the first and second floors with light and air and serves as a spatial counterpoint to the masonry chimney tower on the exterior.
