Oak Ridge House
Scope
Architecture, interiors and construction for a three-bedroom house on a 4.2 acre hillside lot.
Facts
- 2,140 sq ft, three bedrooms
- Drawings and permits: 7 months
- Construction: 13 months, finished 2025
A long, low house that follows the contour of the hill.
The owners walked the lot with us on a hot September afternoon and asked for two things: shade by four o'clock and a view of the oaks from every room. The house steps once with the slope, keeps its roof thin and deep on the west, and opens a full glass wall to the north where the oaks are. The board-formed concrete holds the hill; the cedar above it will silver in three summers.
A glass wall to the north, solid walls to the west
The living room faces the oaks through a nine-panel glass wall that slides back in summer. The west side is concrete, thick enough to hold the afternoon heat off the rooms until the evening breeze arrives.
Materials chosen to weather
Board-formed concrete, untreated western red cedar, white oak floors and blackened steel. Nothing on the outside needs paint; everything is meant to look better at year ten than at year one.
Drawn and built by the same eight people
The project architect ran the site twice a week during construction. When the foundation crew found rock four feet higher than the survey showed, the drawings were revised in the trailer that afternoon instead of in a change-order cycle.
