Compact, precise and blissfully remote, the Open House is set amidst a two-acre wooded plot in upstate New York. Designed and built by David Leven and Stella Betts of Leven Betts Studio for their own use, the new house is a modest 1,500 sq ft retreat for a pair of architects who have a long-standing preoccupation with geometric forms.
The firm’s portfolio of private house has allowed this fascination to flourish, while larger projects, like the interior of a computer science building at Cornell University and library refurbishments throughout Brooklyn, demonstrate how simple shapes can be used to organise even the largest spaces. Both architects continue to teach – Betts at Columbia and Leven at the Parsons School of Design – and the Open House serves as both a personal project and a laboratory for their ideas.
The house is located in Hudson, on a site that has been left as natural as possible; the dazzling white walls create a pure backdrop to the surrounding woodland. Every room is shaped like a right-angled trapezoid, with the resulting floorplan treated like an interlocking puzzle, with the larger end of each wedge facing outwards onto a carefully framed landscape view. Consisting of a kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom and bathroom, the main floor is arranged so that every room leads directly into the great outdoors; the glazing is comprised solely of opening doors.
[falcon]
Given this is a personal project for a couple of academic architects, there are several pragmatic and experimental touches that might not fly in a private commission. For example, all surfaces – walls, floors and ceiling – are clad in Baltic birch plywood and the rooms are intended to be functionally interchangeable, with fixed plumbing and nothing else to define their use. The first floor – described by the architects as a ‘pop-up space’ – overlooks a roof garden and contains another bedroom and bathroom. As a way of combining experimental approaches to design and living, the Open House offers up a refreshingly pared back way of life.
INFORMATION
-
Seven designers rethinking wood at London Design FestivalAt this year’s London Design Festival, wood proves itself anything but static. We highlight seven designers shaping, colouring, and engineering it in surprising ways
-
Inside Kazakhstan’s brutalist Tselinny cinema – now a hub for contemporary cultureTselinny Center of Contemporary Culture, a modernist landmark redesigned for its new purpose by Asif Khan, gears up for its grand opening in Kazakhstan
-
Oliver Spencer’s orbiting installation offers a meditative shopping experience during London Design FestivalAt Oliver Spencer’s Shoreditch store, a sensory light installation by Studio Rhythmics offers a calming moment during LDF
-
Herzog & de Meuron and Piet Oudolf unveil Calder Gardens in PhiladelphiaThe new cultural landmark presents Alexander Calder’s work in dialogue with nature and architecture, alongside the release of Jacques Herzog’s 'Sketches & Notes'. Ellie Stathaki interviews Herzog about the project.
-
Meet Studio Zewde, the Harlem practice that's creating landscapes 'rooted in cultural narratives, ecology and memory'Ahead of a string of prestigious project openings, we check in with firm founder Sara Zewde
-
The best of California desert architecture, from midcentury gems to mirrored dwellingsWhile architecture has long employed strategies to cool buildings in arid environments, California desert architecture developed its own distinct identity –giving rise, notably, to a wave of iconic midcentury designs
-
A restored Eichler home is a peerless piece of West Coast midcentury modernismWe explore an Eichler home, and Californian developer Joseph Eichler’s legacy of design, as a fine example of his progressive house-building programme hits the market
-
How LA's Terremoto brings 'historic architecture into its next era through revitalising the landscapes around them'Terremoto, the Los Angeles and San Francisco collective landscape architecture studio, shakes up the industry through openness and design passion
-
Inside a Donald Wexler house so magical, its owner bought it twiceSo transfixed was Daniel Patrick Giles, founder of fragrance brand Perfumehead, he's even created a special scent devoted to it
-
The Pagani Residences is the latest ultra-luxe automotive apartment tower to reach MiamiRising up above Miami, branded apartment buildings are having a renaissance, as everyone from hypercar builders to crystal makers seeks to have a towering structure bearing their name
-
A modern cabin in Minnesota serves as a contemporary creative retreat from the citySnow Kreilich Architects' modern cabin and studio for an artist on a lakeside plot in Minnesota was designed to spark creativity and provide a refuge from the rat race
