Miner Road

ByMyProperty Life

The clients are a couple of environmental scientists who, along with their two sons, relocated from the Oakland Hills to the warmer climate of Orinda. Their commitment to sustainability, including a request for net-zero energy performance annually, was evident in their thinking throughout the design process. A three-bedroom program began as a remodel of a 1954 ranch house at the foot of a hill next to a seasonal creek.  After finding the existing structure and soils to be unsuitable, the direction settled on reusing the existing footprint under the shade of a Valley Oak that had grown up close to the original house. The surviving portion of the original house is the fireplace which was wrapped in concrete and utilized for structural support. This made additional grading unnecessary and allowed the new house to maintain the same intimate relation to the old oak.  The family desired an open living layout that connected directly to the landscape. A mezzanine plan evolved with a double height family space nested with a master bedroom and study stacked above the kitchen and nook. A screened pacing deck for long phone calls shades the upper level from afternoon summer sun. Downstairs, secondary bedrooms along an extendable hallway, wrap an outdoor dining area situated between the kitchen and family room.  Construction materials and methods were considered in balance between first and lifecycle costs. The Corten steel rain screen for the exterior skin and interior wood were chosen to take advantage of zero annual maintenance cost and a shotcrete foundation allowed formwork to be repurposed for wood framing.  Single use material selections such as the Corten steel and shotcrete foundation reduced complexity in detailing and labor costs allowing a larger portion of the budget to be reallocated for upgraded mechanical, insulation, and glazing systems. The same attitude for interior finishes produced acoustically insulated, unfinished oak ceilings and walls. The sum total of the limited and landscape-driven materials presents a relaxed and quiet built environment that allows the senses to focus on the natural environment. A haptic connection to the rhythms of our planet is evident.  A 14-gauge Corten rain screen provides a no-maintenance skin. High levels of insulation and glazing efficiency reduce heating and cooling loads. An 8.1kW photovoltaic system provides on-site renewable energy and produced more electrical energy than the house used the first year. Rainwater is collected via a waterfall from the roof at the end of the hallway. Buried tanks store water for use in toilets and laundry. Greywater is collected separately and reused for irrigation. Electronically commutated motors and variable speed heat pumps are used to further limit energy use and control heating and cooling. An energy recovery ventilator is used to provide fresh air.

Miner Road
Miner Road
Miner Road

See more on Dwell.com: Miner Road by Faulkner Architects – Orinda, California

Homes near Orinda, California

  • Spring Road Residence
  • The New Old
  • Sea Cliff Preppy Contemporary

Similar Posts

  • Westwood House

    Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville NC with distant north views of Mt Spivey and a narrow sloping lot, this wedge-shaped home is a response to site. We took into careful consideration a variety of site-specific inputs including views, sun orientation, prevailing winds, privacy, and natural cooling/heating techniques among others. The result is a functional, energy efficient home with a distinctive exterior shape and warm light filled interior spaces. The home’s dominant shed roof maximizes solar orientation for photovoltaic panels while also allowing for a double-height central atrium to flood the core of the house with natural light and exhaust hot air on hot summer days. The introduction of natural light into the core of the house reduces the need for artificial lighting on cloudy days, while the chimney effect created by opening large operable skylights at the top of the atrium reduces HVAC loads by bringing cool air up from the basement. This central atrium is an example of how a design feature can multitask –it brings natural light deep into the core of the house, it cools the house using the chimney effect, and it provides a place to grow plants which filter interior air. It also allowed us to minimize the street facing windows for privacy while still maintaining a light filled interior. Anchoring the bottom of the atrium are four large arched openings and a Spanish terracotta tile floor. The tile floor is a durable surface good for watering plants and for heavy foot traffic. A keyhole opening marks the boundary between private and public sides of the house while two of the arched openings frame an intimate eating nook and entry foyer with walls covered in locally milled southern yellow pine. The last arch has steps spilling out into a sunken living room and kitchen area with access to a back deck. Locally milled cypress, a naturally rot resistant wood, covers the exterior and anchors the strong geometry of the house to the site. In the end, our desire for functionality created something more than just an energy efficient home. The interior took on an unexpected bohemian feel; one that originated from a desire for light and functionality, but resulted in warm soft interior spaces that were comfortable and welcoming.

  • SO House

    REVEALING THE EVIDENCE Confrontation with the reality of these ruins was always a confrontation seeped in memories. Memories
    of a place where the raw matter it is constituted of – the rock, the valley and the mountain – shows evident expression, provoking a game of fine balance between place, matter, light and shadow. We found light that dripped down the stone walls defining spaces separated only by rows of stacked rock. In each fissure, in each wrinkle, a soft balance between light and shadow. Standing before this scenery, the exercise consisted in finding the most natural way to connect ruins and spaces, simultaneously defining future possibilities for links between the interior and the exterior. Where decisions were concerned, we chose to rehabilitate pre-existing volumes and introduce a new connecting element. The answer is given by the almost immediate decision to join together the pre-existing elements. This
    gesture, deeply connected to the terrain along the pendente – connects the two sections facing west,
    forming an exterior courtyard adorned with a centenary olive tree. This project builds a space that runs through the ruins, uniting them and revealing the obvious functional relationship between the house’s programmatic areas, simultaneously differentiating the possibilities for inhabiting the exterior space. It expresses its temporality through the antagonism of matter in its relationship with pre-existing elements.