Bates Masi + Architects LLC, a full-service architectural firm with roots in New York City and the East End of Long Island for over 45 years, responds to each project with extensive research in related architectural fields, material, craft and environment for unique solutions as varied as the individuals or groups for whom they are designed. The focus is neither the size nor the type of project but the opportunity to enrich lives and enhance the environment. The attention to all elements of design has been a constant in the firm’s philosophy. Projects include urban and suburban residences, schools, offices, hotels, restaurants, retail and furniture in the United States, Central America and the Caribbean. The firm has received 43 design awards since 2003 and has been featured in national and international publications including The New York Times, New York Magazine, Architectural Digest, Architectural Record, Metropolitan Home, and Dwell. Residential Architect Magazine selected Bates Masi one of their 50 Architect’s We Love. A gallery exhibition in May 2010 featured the firm’s earlier work from 1960-70.
Far Pond
Lot size: .43 acres
Building size: 3,100 sq. ft.
Location: Southampton, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
The waterfront site of an existing 1970’s kit house overlooks layers of wetlands to an estuary, the bay, and the ocean. The client set the parameters of keeping the existing structure while doubling the size of the house with an addition. The existing structure consists of glulam post and beam construction connected with steel plates. One solution could be to mimic the existing architectural language of the post and beam skeletal structure in the addition. Since the existing house clearly expressed the structural system, the addition should also express this. The architect chose to clearly identify the existing system of the house and create a dialogue with a contrasting panelized system in the addition. The new system utilizes prefabricated elements that resolve multiple structural and spatial problems. Examining the strategy of a kit of parts, current material fabrication technologies are utilized to expand on this idea. A different approach to sustainability is explored, minimizing waste by simplifying to the essential components in order to resolve multiple problems, thus eliminating typical construction waste. Using a standard as a precedent and developing a new structural system paired with the latest technologies, a material can accomplish multiple tasks and heighten the experience of inhabiting the space.
Prefabricated shear wall panels, used in light frame construction in areas that are
hurricane prone with high force winds, were studied. Most are made from a light gauge metal folded to add strength and rigidity. For our case the panels were to be exposed and used for more than just a hidden structural component. A standard light gauge 4x8 steel sheet was folded back and forth along the long axis adding the same strength and rigidity to the panel. The resulting 2’ panel locks into adjacent panels and is a structural shear and bearing assembly, as well as a decorative furniture component.
The new structural panels multitask throughout the addition. The solid steel transitions to a perforated panel that baffles the sunlight over windows and doors. The light quality varies throughout the day as light levels transition through the overlapped perforations. Fins that protrude from the wall panels are laser cut to accept shelving, seating and countertops. The same perforated steel becomes the dining room chandelier, and the platform for the stair and desk. This one material is exhausted in its possible uses throughout the house, minimizing the necessity for additional components that require wasteful shipping and packaging. The secondary infill material is used through both structures, on the floors, walls and ceilings to unify the old and the new.
Using new technologies to fabricate customized panels from a standard product accomplishes several things: less material is necessary to achieve greater structural strength, multiple programs can be integrated into one material, waste is minimized resulting in a more effective approach to sustainability, and the dialogue between the existing and new structural systems elevates the experience of inhabiting the space.
Genius Loci
Lot size: 1.6 acres
Building size: 7,000 sq. ft.
Location: Montauk, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Michael Moran
Contractor: Davis Builders
Montauk, NY, resembles many other small seaside communities. However, it possesses unique characteristics that imprint lasting memories. The weather is unpredictable with banks of heavy fog and gusty winds. History is closer to folklore than truth with stories of the Montauk Project Conspiracy, German Submarines and, the Montauk Monster blurring the line between fact and fiction. Remnants of the past such as a radar tower and bunkers are scattered throughout the landscape. Socially, there is a seasonal migration and mix of economic classes. The clients could have chosen to vacation anywhere in the world, but were lured to Montauk by the characteristics that make it unique from other areas. These characteristics embody the “Spirit of Montauk” and the clients challenged the architect to design a house that would embody and capture this spirit.
Formerly a horse ranch, the rolling green pasture of the site is located at one of the highest elevations in Montauk. The extensive program is terraced and embedded into the steep slope of the hill without compromising access to the exterior or natural light. Approaching from the south, the house appears to be two modest and separate one-story ranch houses. Circling around to the north, the house unfolds to reveal a more extensive project. In this case, the conventional
Montauk building typology of the low-pitched gabled roof is modified by the geometries of the allowable building envelope and height restrictions of the site. The ridge is offset and the walls converge, directing one’s view west to the lake. The optical illusion caused by the parabolic roof is visible on the South side and entices a second look, as do numerous other details.
Architectural details throughout the house occur at unexpected moments. A wood screen covered bridge unifies the two shingle clad volumes, allowing light into the grass paver courtyard below. The cedar screen of the bridge reads differently from day to night. It appears flat during the day, but, as darkness falls, light seeps out in an undulating pattern showing the wedge shape cut in the back of the boards. In front of clerestory windows, a milled bluestone screen is similarly detailed. The stone appears weightless as alternating stones are removed from the pattern to let light into the guest area. These unexpected details reinforce the larger idea of capturing the unexpected.
There is no prescribed path of circulation, encouraging different encounters much like the social experiences of Montauk. One can enter beneath the bridge and up terraced planter steps revealing the rolling hills and ocean in the distance. One can also climb the exterior entry stair that mirrors the interior stair, separated by a wall of glass. One can choose to enter into the house or continue to the outdoor fireplace, dining area, and out to the pool. The exploration resulting from unique circulation yields a different memorable experience for everyone.
Georgica Pond
Lot size: 2.0 acres
Building size: 6,500 sq. ft.
Location: East Hampton
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Christopher Wesnofske
Contractor: Andreassen & Bulgin
This limestone, steel, aluminum and glass house was erected on the foundation of an earlier one-story modern wood house designed by the Architect 35 years ago. The new owners, needing a larger house, wanted to continue the modern vernacular at this pond-front property. However, subsequent zoning dictated building only on the exact footprint of the original house. The new structure has two stories with a connected studio/garage.
The Main Entrance is a 2-storied skylit space with double staircase to the second floor. The living room, dining room, kitchen, utility room, library, and two guest bedrooms with baths are on the first floor. The second floor has the master bedroom/sitting room with two dressing rooms, two vanity areas and a large bathroom with separate tub and shower. Also on the second floor are an exercise room, massage room and skylit solarium at the top of the double stair.
All rooms open onto continuous walkways and terraces around the entire house at both first and second floors.
The interior flooring is limestone and carpet; large expanses of plaster walls accommodate the owner's art collection.
The studio and garage, also on an original foundation, are attached to the main house with a glass walled and roofed corridor. The swimming pool and pool house are located a short distance from the main house with its' own view of the surrounding pond.
Lion's Head
Lot size: 3/4 acres
Building size: 3,500 sq. ft.
Location: East Hampton
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Bates Masi Architects
Contractor: Karl Avallone Builder
Set on a narrow site atop a bluff overlooking Gardiner’s Bay, this house replaces a vacation home shared by 2 brothers and their families for over 25 years before it was destroyed by fire. Since originally building on the site, new regulations have been established and the families have grown in size. The new structure responds to these needs while preserving and enhancing the casual summertime lifestyle long enjoyed by its owners.
A new house on the same property provided an opportunity to rethink how the client would use the house. The harsh weather of the waterfront location previously required time-consuming maintenance. Therefore, all of the materials for the new house are durable and naturally weathering. The wood siding with water-resistant tannins and oils, zinc fascia, and slate roofing repurposed as a siding material require little maintenance. These strategies allow the family to enjoy each other instead of spending time maintaining their house.
The house is composed of two simple taut volumes. The public and private living areas are in the waterside volume, all with spectacular views and access to the beach. Circulation, baths, and utilities are
in the landward volume overlooking the pool. By offsetting the volumes vertically and horizontally, the surface area of the compact design increases, allowing for more windows to admit light and westerly breezes. This slippage also creates intimate outdoor spaces for bathing, entertaining, and dining.
The views of Gardiner’s Bay that the family has enjoyed for the past 25 years are revisited. Frames create vignettes unique to each space. As a visitor, the sequence of views is choreographed to encourage exploration and further discovery. Snap shots of sky, sea and cliffs coordinate with different experiences throughout the house to create memories.
The deep frames in front of each volume provide privacy from neighboring properties while leaving the east and west facades open to views of the water. The frames create spaces that defy the conventional distinctions between indoors and outdoors. At the roof deck, portions of the ceiling and walls are omitted to create an “outdoor room” open to the sky and the landscape, yet more contiguous with the interior than a conventional deck or terrace. The screened porch is similarly open to the elements while remaining integrated with the sequence of interior rooms. The frames direct attention away from the house to the water views and surrounding landscape, further easing the boundaries between interior and exterior spaces.
By carefully intertwining spaces and materials with the landscape, the design creates an environment that the family will continue to enjoy for many years to come. The deliberate framing of the landscape has changed the perspective of the familiar view giving each family member his or her own unique experience.
Northwest Peach Farm
Lot size: 10 acres
Building size: 7000 sq. ft.
Location: East Hampton, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Michael Moran
Landscape Architect: Coen + Partners
This residence is primarily used when the clients’ extended family comes from England for long visits. They come to relax and to reconnect with their family and with nature, away from city crowds and traffic, at a retreat they neither want nor need to leave for a month. The design objective was to make every day of that month unique by providing a range of destinations within the site with diverse scales, functions, and views: from gathering in the expansive living room overlooking the fields of the former peach orchard to reading alone on a shaded bench between the library and the edge of the forest. Multiple paths and hallways connect each destination, further increasing variety. Finally, each detail and custom furnishing is designed to make mundane rituals into thoughtful events.
For example, in the kitchen, rolling cutting boards ride in tracks down the long island, turning meal preparation into an assembly line for everyone’s participation. Those not cooking can make a selection from the wine room where the bottles cast a pattern of shadows through a glazed wall into the main entrance. The dining table can be configured for the evening: stainless steel tubes running the length of the table can be rotated to reveal candleholders, flower
vase holders, or flat surfaces for hot dishes. At other times, the tubes can be removed and the trough filled with ice for chilling drinks. For a change of pace, there is dining on the roof deck at sunset, barbequing on the terrace, lunch in the shade of the pool house canopy, or breakfast in the screened porch. Each space is unique, making each meal special.
Even the morning routine becomes an event. In the kids’ rooms, a ribbon of stone traces their morning ritual. Starting as a nightstand by the bed, it becomes a bench for their pile of clothes, a desk for checking their email, a sink in the bathroom, and, finally, the shower floor. In the parents’ master closet, hidden steel hooks pivot up from the mahogany bench to hang the day’s outfit choices.
The clients wanted this to be a gathering place for their family, full of memories for generations to come. Thus the materials were chosen not only for durability but also for their gradual changes over many years. The copper siding and roofing will slowly turn green as the weathering limestone becomes darker. However, the window system will stand the test of time unchanged. An English company has manufactured the same industrial steel windows for over 150 years and many early examples are still in tact. A geothermal heating and cooling system, green roofs, organic finishes, and triple glazed windows will minimize the structure’s environmental impact over the generations.
The clients look forward to many tranquil summers together with their family in the house.
Noyack Creek
Lot size: 0.31 acres
Building size: 1,350 sq. ft.
Location: Noyack, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Bates Masi Architects
The client, a New York actor, sought a retreat for relaxation and casual entertaining on a restrictive narrow lot fronting the tidal estuary of Noyack Creek. The house became a study in architectural theatre: a series of spaces in a carefully scripted sequence that subtly reflect his professional life.
The path begins at the front door where perforated privacy screens slide apart like a curtain, revealing the loft-like living and dining spaces. The direction of the deck boards that make up the flooring is altered to demarcate the path through the space, emerging seamlessly to an exterior waterside deck. A broad stair to the second level, parallel with an interior stair along a glazed wall, acts as tiered seating for entertaining and looking at the water view beyond. Beneath the stair, hidden backstage for maximum privacy, the guest room shares the water view through a nearly hidden sliding door. Guests emerge as if through a trap door.
Continuing up the stair to the second floor, the final destination is the master suite and balcony. The master bedroom is connected to the bath by a bridge overlooking the public spaces below which are lit by the glazed stair wall. Lined with a guardrail of stainless steel cables recalling a fly loft and catwalk, the path culminates in the master bedroom with its wall of glazing overlooking the water.
Windows throughout the house are carefully placed to provide the maximum daylight and water views while maintaining privacy from the nearby neighbors and street. The siding system is manipulated for varying degrees of privacy as well. Comprised of Skatelite, a natural resin panel typically used in skateboard ramps, the siding is water-jet cut with tight joints in areas demanding privacy and loosely spaced in other areas to admit light and air. The texture and color of the siding, in keeping with the budget of the house, reference a black box theatre.
In the end, a house that could have been limited by its small site and budget was elevated by its conception as a stage for memorable experiences.
Pryor
Lot size: 1.6 acres
Building size: 3,200 sq. ft.
Location: Montauk, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Bates Masi Architects
Landscape Architect: Coen + Partners
The house occupies a hill in Montauk with a distant view of the ocean, a site that the owners, a couple with two young boys, spent years to find. It is the couple’s reprieve from their home in the city, to share the outdoor lifestyle with their family and to remember their teenage years together in Montauk. The house design prompts the owners to interact with the surrounding environment, evoking experiences of camping.
A departure from typical residential planning, the house is entered through multiple areas for different guests and occasions. Large glass doors slide open to the living, dining and kitchen area for a large gathering; a smaller scaled swing door for an occasional guest opens to the center hall with a view of the ocean. A sequence of auxiliary spaces - beach equipment area, outdoor shower, sand and mudroom – creates a seamless ritual of the daily activities for the family and friends. In all living areas and bedrooms, glass doors and insect screens slide in and out from pocket walls, transforming rooms to screened porches or spaces completely open to the landscape.
The living area, a double height space with kitchen, dining and living area, has thirty-six feet wide glass doors that pocket
into southern and northern walls. When open, the dining room becomes a picnic area and the living room fireplace becomes a campfire. Multiple layers of bronzed metal fabric at the clerestory windows in the living area fold and unfold to adjust sunlight for optimal brightness & temperature of the space. These operable architectural elements use the natural environment to create suitable living conditions.
The house is environmentally friendly in its overall construction and planning with geo-thermal heating and cooling, shading and venting systems, solar panels, and organic finishes and materials. Lending to the structure’s sustainability, the house is assembled, rather than built, with a prefabricated foundation, panel siding and efficient built-ins, minimizing construction debris and toxins such as concrete foundation tar on the site. With the owner’s initial premise of camping, the design and functionality of the house promote a memorable experience for friends and family in the natural environment.
Quail Hill
Lot size: 2.1 acres
Building size: 3,400 sq. ft.
Location: Amagansett, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Christopher Wesnofske
At the first meeting, the clients introduced both their growing family and growing art collection. They were particularly excited about a new artist, Vik Muniz, whose works based on photographs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis provided a delightful discovery upon closer inspection: paintings of the iconic images rendered in peanut butter and jelly. This moment of discovery and playful deception became the design concept of the house.
Approaching the house by the winding driveway, the gabled form, massive chimney, and shingled siding are all reminiscent of traditional houses on eastern Long Island. Looking closely, the shingles are, in fact, a woven screen of oak surveyors stakes, similar to those that dotted the steeply wooded lot when the clients first saw it. Similarly, the massive chimney that anchors the house to the site isn’t solid at all, but is actually made of thin concrete panels.
Entering the house, with a view of the pool and gardens beyond, the wall enclosing the stair looks like translucent stone. One has to look very carefully to see that it is a double paned glass wall filled with small seashells, a reference to the nearby beaches. The double-height living/dining room is a compatible scale and space for the large works of art and family
gatherings. The fireplace surround reflects fragmented images of the art and surrounding landscape while its crystalline appearance defies its humble origins: polished stainless steel military dog tags.
Expectations were also subverted in the structural system of the house to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency. Behind the stake siding and interior gypsum board are walls comprised of precast concrete panels typically used in foundation construction. These durable and low maintenance panels are double insulated for efficiency and are a perfect scale for hanging large art. By staggering the walls slightly, tall, narrow windows admit indirect light and allow glimpses of the landscape.
By subverting expectations, this house encourages multiple readings that change, depending on time and perception. It turns this house into something more: an exploration of perception.
Re-cover
Lot size: 0.5 acres
Building size: 1,500 sq. ft.
Location: Amagansett, New York
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Christopher Wesnofske
Contractor: Paul Cassidy
Thirty-five years after the firm originally designed this vacation residence, its new owners sought to rejuvenate the house while preserving its spaces, seasoned tones, and texture. Clad inside and out almost entirely in twelve-inch wide cypress boards, the original house exuded a straightforward simplicity the owners wished to maintain. By constraining the palette of materials and reusing salvaged parts of the existing house, the line between new and old becomes nearly imperceptible, limited only to minimal inflections in finish.
In the enlarged and updated baths, and in the modernized kitchen and dining terrace, a dense glacial sedimentary sandstone is used for its fine workability into a variety of finishes. In this way the stone varies subtly – only in texture – as it is reapplied from one surface to another: horizontal walking surfaces are rendered with a smooth honed finish, vertical wall surfaces with a rough flamed finish, and countertops in a glossy polished finish. This tactile language is traced consistently from room to room.
Little of the material seen in the addition is in fact new. As the south wall and deck of the house were dismantled to make room for the new construction, the cypress boards and cedar decking were carefully
salvaged and machined into new siding, fine scrim material, stair treads and risers. Reused, this cladding bears precisely the same patina as the other surfaces in the house – an effect truly impossible to achieve with new construction materials. Only on close inspection is new texture and color revealed at the boards’ freshly cut edges.
In enhancing the simplicity of the original design, a subtle complexity has emerged. Splices, cuts, and finishing techniques inflect upon otherwise homogenous materials, recording the methods of craft and workmanship. Over the next thirty-five years the patina that naturally accrues over time will continue refine the delicacy of these inflections.
Roaman
Lot size: 0.43 acres
Building size: 3,450 sq. ft.
Location: Amagansett, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Christopher Wesnofske
Contractor: A Harry&Sally Doghouse
A young couple with a growing family sought to redevelop property on a street of small cottages on narrow half-acre plots, requesting a proposal that could accommodate their space needs, reflect their interests and personalities, and integrate sensitively into the neighborhood. The consummate design for this photographer-naturalist duo combines highly efficient interior and exterior space organization with a dynamic articulation of materials in an architectural vocabulary at once freshly modern and deferential to its neighbors.
The main house and detached woodshop are formed and configured to collect and define discreet areas for outside activities such as guest reception, fireside entertaining, dining, swimming, and lawn sports. Articulating these zones and tailoring each to its intended purpose maximizes the yard’s utility. Extending the facades of the house and woodshop as freestanding walls furnishes each outdoor space with privacy, and tucking other spaces beneath the second story affords shelter from the elements. Ultimately, the small site’s potential is fully realized while maintaining a sense of liberal space through order.
While the house’s cantilevered second story resonates with the other homes on the street in its simple gabled structure and traditional clapboard siding, the ground level is wrapped in a unique custom-milled rainscreen siding. The top edge of each board is beveled subtly at different angles to render varying degrees of shadow and permit various amounts of transparency across the facade. As the sun moves across the sky throughout the day, high to low through the seasons, and crisp to diffuse through atmospheric changes, so too will the house’s surfaces and spaces beyond change dramatically over time. In this way a photo-graphic (light-drawing) technique is activated by changes in the natural environment, uniting the clients’ interests and lifestyle in their home and site.
Amplification of the play of light on the built structure is pursued further inside the house. Above the living room a half-butterfly roof diffuses southern sunlight through a frosted glass clerestory and reflects it deep into the dining area. At the stairwell a dormer nestled in the gabled roof lights the tall column of space from three stories above. And in the master bedroom light entering through the gable-end clerestory filters through a ceiling of the custom-milled siding.
Ultimately, the house not only serves the basic needs of its residents, but also acts as a work of kinetic sculpture, an art piece that enriches their daily lives.
Robins Way
Lot size: 1.5 acres
Building size: 2,000 sq. ft.
Location: Amagansett, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Bates Masi Architects
Contractor: Brian Mannix
Interior Designer: Athena Calderone
The clients, an interior designer and a DJ, requested a complete renovation and addition of a 1960’s kit house in Amagansett, NY to be a weekend retreat from their urban apartment. The clients gathered images of objects and conventional materials utilized in new, interesting ways as inspiration for the design. A single design solution that could unify the old remaining parts of the house to the new intervention was sought. This solution should solve acoustical, lighting, equipment coordination and simultaneously address the aesthetic décor requirements of the client’s collection of objects. A vocabulary was developed that allowed the patina and history that the client favored to remain and new experiences to evolve.
The house was gutted and reduced down to the skeletal framework allowing the intervention to utilize the post and beam construction that remained. Between the existing ceiling joists, natural rope was woven through a digitally fabricated framework. Weaving patterns were used to signify different ceiling conditions. Lighting penetrates through a crossed weave of the rope. It transitions to a straight weave to shield speakers and utilities from view. Since the client is a DJ, sound is very important. The rope weave
acts as an acoustic baffle absorbing background noise, but allows music from the ceiling mounted speakers to be emitted.
To integrate with the décor, the rope was used structurally to support several items such as a large, custom steel framed mirror in the Master Bathroom and the Dining Room Chandelier. A large sliding door is woven with the same rope to provide privacy from the neighbors and shield the sun at various times of the day. The sunlight rakes through the openings casting linear shadows on the bathroom floor.
Unifying the exterior is a dark stained cedar siding that wraps all of the exterior facades and transitions to the matching frames of the replaced windows and doors. The newly constructed interior walls and interior cabinetry were also resurfaced in reclaimed barn wood. Behind a sheet of glass, the same reclaimed wood lines the shower surround and one feels as though they are showering outdoors. The clients now have a quiet escape from city life.
The frequent turnover within a vacation community can be wasteful. Some are eager to tear down what exists and start new. This project preserved the skeleton of the house and the history in the patinaed materials that the client desired. Conventional materials were utilized in new ways to unify the old and the new.
Sagaponack
Lot size: 2 acres
Building size: 8965 sq. ft.
Location: Sagaponack, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Michael Moran
Contractor: Wright & Co. Construction
Interior Designer: Bates Masi Architects
Landscape Architect: Stephen Stimson
Located between the Atlantic Ocean and a freshwater pond, this residence is for an adventurous couple and their four sons. They wanted a house for their large family and numerous guests with a lawn, swimming pool, pool house, garage, and sports courts on a site with a limited building envelope due to coastal and wetland zoning. The large program, relatively small footprint, and daunting regulations dictated a building envelope densely packed with program that stood as a barrier between the ocean and the pond. Thus the design process was one of subtraction rather than addition: carving away at the solid mass of the house to reconnect site features and views and to distill the experience of the place.
Spaces run the full width of the house with floor to ceiling sliding doors on both sides. The spaces create apertures through which views, light, and air completely penetrate the house, dissolving its mass. Passersby see directly through the house to the sky and landscape beyond. With the sliding doors open and recessed into the adjacent walls, interior spaces are transformed from formal rooms to open pavilions, merging seamlessly with the site.
To accommodate the extensive program spaces are nested within one another. Operable partitions pull out from the walls of the living room, carving out a media room within the living room when privacy is desired. Conversely, with the partitions open, the media room merges with the living room for large gatherings. The thickness of the wall separating the dining room and kitchen is also cut away, utilizing its depth to accommodate a wine rack that also functions as a light fixture.
The process of carving is applied at the material and detail level as well. The 5/8” corten steel plate that clads the base of the house is waterjet cut into a delicate pattern that defies its mass. Inside, corian is employed for the ease with which it can be milled. Corian countertops are cut to form towel bars, bunk bed frames are carved to create ladders, cabinet doors are recessed to form handles, and wainscoting is subtly etched with meaningful words chosen by the clients.
Materials were chosen not only for their workability, but also for their durability in the coastal environment. Corten steel siding is zero maintenance despite being relentlessly sandblasted by the wind. Cedar siding and screens are finished using a Victorian technique in which the iron sulfate in a blend of white vinegar and iron filings reacts with the tannins in wood, creating an ebony finish that penetrates through the material and will not require refinishing. The lack of harsh stains or finishes reduces the ecological footprint of the house. Geothermal heating and cooling as well as vegetated roofs further reduce the environmental impact.
Using the design approach of sculpting away rather than building up, the house is pared down until the experience of the extraordinary site is dominant.
Sam's Creek
Lot size: 1 acres
Building size: 6,500 sq. ft.
Location: Bridgehampton, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Bates Masi Architects
Contractor: Breitenbach Builders
We live in a time where smart phones and tablets are in everyone’s hands and multitasking is the normal way of life. Influenced from the client’s multitasking lifestyle, a diverse set of requirements developed for a new home. The clients, one of whom is the owner of a public relations company, requested that multiple activities could take place throughout the house without interruption; a dinner party could take place while simultaneously entertaining a group of children, or guests could come and go without disturbing the rest of the family. These programmatic requests diagrammatically divide the site as well as establish view corridors from front to back. Transparency through the house puts simultaneous activities on display, and provides a setting where guests can see and be seen.
A series of open-ended boxes, each tailored to a portion of the architectural program focuses the view from the street though the house to the landscape in the rear. Mahogany boards wrap floors, ceilings, and walls to heighten the perspectival view and provide privacy from neighbors. Each box has independent audio, video, and climate control to operate autonomously and the length, height, and volume of each box is adjusted to appropriately encase the program. Interstitial spaces between the arranged
boxes are gardens and patios. The overlap of the boxes creates thresholds that highlight interesting moments. With each box occupying a specific program, the multitasking of different events is achieved.
With a limited material palate, travertine is used as flooring for the terraces and as cladding on portions of the open-ended boxes. To use the stone as an exterior cladding, a custom hanging system was designed. The travertine siding is captured at the top and bottom by a CNC wire formed frame and overlapped by the following course above. The proportion and repetition of the siding references the wood shingle vernacular ubiquitous in the area.
The fireplace merges a utilitarian object and a crafted, sculptural work of art. The fireplace conceals a moment frame, supporting lateral loads to allow for the large open-ended volume of the dining and living room. It also houses a coat closet and the HVAC components. The overlapping, repeating bronze components were digitally fabricated and assembled on site. Different patina processes were studied to achieve the dark bronze facing the room and the polished bronze on the interior of the hood. Sunlight from above is reflected by the polished bronze and filters through the gaps from the overlapped construction. Similar construction methods were utilized for the master bedroom headboard using repeating strips of belting leather.
The separation of program into individual volumes allows the multitasking lifestyle of the clients to continue into their home. Where multitasking on a daily basis can seem chaotic, a new order is developed by the architecture. The client’s new home allows them to keep up with their busy lifestyle while also providing respite from it.
Tree House
Lot size: 0.15 acres
Building size: 1,440 sq. ft.
Location: Fire Island, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Courtesy of the owner
Contractor: William A. Lynch
This 2-level house, referred to by its' Owner as his "tree house", is situated in a dense grove of pines and hollies with a view of the bay from the second level.
The approach by a raised wooden walkway arrives at a walled deck and glass entrance. Two guest bedrooms, bath and guest deck are on the first floor with a steel stair leading to the living, dining, kitchen and Master Suite on the second floor.
All exterior and interior wall surfaces and cabinets are rough cut cypress; the flooring is bleached oak. The ceilings are exposed fir structural members and doors and windows are aluminum. The 1" X 12" cypress vertical louvers on the high windows reduce the intensity of the southern sun. The east and west walls of the house are virtually blank because of the close proximity of the neighbors and a public walkway.
Upcher
Lot size: 0.5 acres
Building size: 1,400 sq. ft.
Location: East Hampton, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Bates Masi Architects
Contractor: Seacoast Construction
The design of this 1200 sq. ft. residence for a writer was a study in adaptability and re-use. The client was looking to simplify her life and downsize from an earlier house done by this firm. The new house would be built just west of her existing house on the adjacent property. She voiced the desire for her new house to be functional, light, informal, simple and maintain a view of a large moss covered rock on the site.
The house was designed to be both spatially and economically efficient by coordinating the assembly of pre-manufactured components researched over the Internet. It is essentially one large room with ancillary spaces that feed off it. The structure is an adjustable cantilevering rack system used in lumberyards. It is comprised of standard steel sizes with an assortment of brackets and arms that can be specified for any type of load or application. Bolted connections secure the steel arms and brackets to the steel columns. From these appendages cabinetry is hung, a fireplace mantel is suspended and handrails are applied. They also support the mahogany bookshelves and the walkway around the perimeter of the library.
Prefabricated concrete foundation walls, formaldehyde free water-resistant fiber board, rough sawn okoume wood, aluminum windows, dyed concrete wall panels, pre-assembled wood screens, cabinets from IKEA and gabion retaining walls are the other elements that come together to form the house.
Nothing in the house is excessive. Only what is needed is what has been provided for. The house’s ability to be adapted and retrofitted, expanded or reduced allows for a multiplicity of uses and to do so without waste is implicit in the design.
