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Architects: Randy Brown Architects
- Year: 2010
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Photographs: Farshid Assassi
Text description provided by the architects. The Basler Residence, titled Twist by the architects, sits on a corner lot with two faces to the street. Its exterior facades blend well into the surrounding area, but the house is different from its neighbors. The client sought out Randy Brown Architects of Omaha, Nebraska to design a modern family home. The resulting house is a hybrid with attention to context, and a sleek, modern interior.
Although the exterior of the house was made to fit in among the neighborhood houses, Randy Brown Architects artfully merged the traditional form with modern touches. The house has traditional sloped roofs with slate shingles that help it blend into its suburban development, and a masonry exterior. The light colored stone of the facades is broken up by large window bays with black steel detailing to make the home more modern.
This nod to the traditional homes in the area is primarily located on the exterior street facades. Twist also has two facades facing into the lot that show more of the modern touches hinted at in the front facades. Here, the windows with strong black steel framing extend the length of the building. Tall window bays flood light into the upper levels, and a double height space is opened even more with an entire wall of glass looking out onto the interior courtyard.
The house’s layout also proves its individuality in the neighborhood. Its “L” shaped form hugs an interior courtyard that is bound on the other two sides by rows of trees. This green space is embraced by the building in form and through views onto the secluded space sprinkled through the house. Randy Brown Architects placed the living room and kitchen alongside the courtyard to encourage gathering in the space.
The architects carefully considered the interior layout in relation to the courtyard. They created a comfortable but thoughtful procession through the house, and highlighted the vertical circulation with a dramatic twist, its namesake.
Twist by Randy Brown Architects successfully uses the modern details the clients sought after, and updates the typical suburban house. It manages to blend into the neighborhood but still stands out as a modern dwelling by the architects with consideration for much more than just the details.
