2009-2012
Location: Coxsackie, New York
Square Footage: 6,500
Rooms: 5 Bedrooms, 4.5 Bathrooms
This river-front home is placed along the top of a sharply sloped shale river bank ridge, with the surrounding woods providing design inspiration. Like a walk in the woods, the house and landscape conceals the views beyond it. Only by entering the home is the full drama of the landscape revealed.
Two linked wings form the L-shaped plan, di- viding the home into private and public spaces and providing a narrow footprint to permit nat- ural cross ventilation. The two wings hug the natural contours forming an entry courtyard. At the intersection of the two wings is the entrance where visitors have their first views of the Hud- son River. The public wing perches along the top of the ridge providing commanding views of the river while permitting the landscape to flow under the house and provide space for seven geothermal wells which serve the radiant cool- ing and heating for the home.
Deep exterior decks encase the interior as bark protects a tree providing relief from the summer sun while in the winter permitting warm sunlight into the interior. The exterior rain screen con- sisting of warm reclaimed wood and concrete panels are layered to reveal floor-to-ceiling windows providing natural light to the interiors, minimizing the demands on interior lighting.
The house is capped with a 16kW array of solar panels while the lower roofs are planted with native species minimizing storm water runoff and linking the home back to the natural land- scape.
*Project for BWA