Inside the Newest PREFAB HOME in America!!

Relaxing, fun-filled and full of sunshine that many other parts of the North American continent starve of in the long, cold winter months, the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico is a holiday that is not far away for many. And it is here that we find the incredibly resourceful, charming and relaxing Casa Picasso. Deriving its […]

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Martha’s Vineyard is home to the single largest concentration of our residential work and some of our earliest projects, including the Polly Hill Arboretum. Chilmark House, like many of these commissions, is immersed in the landscape and continually reconnects its inhabitants with the surrounding woods, pools of sunlight and nearby Vineyard Sound. Entire walls and windows are designed to vanish and erase boundaries between indoors and outdoors. We were guided in the earliest phase of the project by the couple’s wish for distinct public and private spaces and the site’s topography. The central public space—the living and dining areas–plus a sitting room in the guest wing, are oriented toward a kind of natural sun-filled well on the house’s south side. Interior load-bearing elliptical columns allow sliding doors and windows to make large openings to the south in the exterior walls. Opposite, on the north side, sliding windows create large gaps in the exterior, connecting the living room and kitchen directly to the woods and waters of the sound. Bedrooms are on the wooded edges, on the east and west sides. A roof deck, terrace and side decks create outdoor living spaces. Shortly after completion of this project, the couple asked us to begin designing a guesthouse nearby as their family continued to grow.

Take a journey to the woods and trek through the forest. For every step you take, listen. A far cry from the city, the suburb- the familiar. Not there, but here. Be present. The house is a not a house. Nor are you, you. Here, it is different. The grazing of light gently paints the surfaces of the atrium. The windows are open fully; no, rather, nature, in all its sublime invites itself into the traveler’s abode, filtering the morning light – its rays carrying forth the scent of the pine forest beyond. Your coffee isn’t the same anymore. The slow drip of time are now ever evident, the light, pronounced. Your movements occupy the passage of time. Cooking around the kitchen island elevates an appreciation for nature’s bounty. As there is slow food, there is slow space, slowness, silence. The house weaves through the forest. Nature shapes the house, the house shapes light, and the light shapes us.