This Tiny Alpine Cabin Promises Better Star Gazing Than Your Local Planetarium

If you are not prepared for Halloween yet, then you are not alone. 2020 has been a pretty hectic year for many of us and we are still trying to figure out ways in which we can move forward in the safest way possible. Working with what is being called the ‘new normal’ means that […]

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A self-initiated, architect-led design-develop-build project, Tesseract house was not designed with a specific client in mind. Rather, it was conceived as a business case to prove that one can create great contemporary architecture that fulfills a demand in the marketplace, while demonstrating that unbridled creativity generates innovative and artful spaces, using conventional and readily available construction methods. All of this was accomplished without breaking the bank and with a typical budget for a house of this kind Located in Toronto’s western lakeside streetcar suburb, this single-family residence proves contextual while owing little to convention and serving as the antithesis to recent vernaculars. By simply and unconventionally engaging the immediate context this contemporary alternative has an impactful, yet unimposing outward presence. This geometry and the depth of experience from which the house derives its name is not provocatively innovative but nuanced, both simple and complex, revealing itself over time. All of this within the constraints of conventional local residential construction, the Tesseract House unapologetically desires to be more than just a place to live.

This is a full-time beach house for a car passionate family of four situated across from Burnt Cedar Beach in Incline Village, Nevada on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. Prior to being pulled up the hill to flumes and rails destined for Virginia City, logs were staged here as the mountains around the lake shore were logged during the silver mining years of the 1860s. Set into a neighborhood originally built in the 1950s and bordered by houses to the sides and rear, the house takes a simple box form, half buried into the slope. It faces the lake with full height glazing that encloses a loft-like plan with double height living spaces. The clients requested a space that felt like the landscape and maintained a feeling inside of being outside in the light and shadow play of the sixty to ninety-foot Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines that populate the lake shore.  Perforated wood ceilings and acoustical plaster walls soften the sounds of the concrete and glass pavilion-like house. An underground garage is excavated under the house with level access to the street, a must in this snowy climate for a family with an eclectic car collection.

With a budget of $13K, Intervention Architecture revamped a 388-square-foot flat into an airy home/ballet studio with shape-shifting furniture.