The Matchbox House / Bureau for Architecture and Urbanism

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Text description provided by the architects. The concept for the house is a matchbox in which the four inner quadrants (cedar siding) slip past one another within the outer sleeve (standing seam metal wrapper).  By doing so, each end of the inner quadrants either juts out past the outer sleeve, or is pushed into it, thereby creating outdoor space that is still within the confines of the sleeve. The house is meant to read as an urban cottage nestled in the woods and therefore in its approaching (short) elevation it has the geometry of an iconic 4 sided house. To articulate this even more, it is raised on an inset concrete plinth, which expresses the bottom two edges (and therefore fifth side) that would normally touch the ground.

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The house has four bedrooms, 1,740 sf of conditioned space and a one car garage. It is on track to receive LEED Platinum Certification. It has a HERS rating of 49 and many "green" features, including FSC wood, reclaimed trim from demolished barns, no conventional turf (no irrigation) and low flow plumbing fixtures. The house is meant to be small and compact: every area in this house is used (there is neither an attic nor a basement). Because of this, the house has rooms which vary in volume and create dynamic spaces. The upstairs rooms have dramatic ceilings that begin at 3’-0” and end at 16’-0”. A portion of the main living area has a double volume space which goes to the roof.

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