Project Description
PROVIDED BY AIA IDAHO:
This single family residence was designed for a lot at the edge of a largely filled in older subdivision in Ketchum Idaho.
The lot posed a number of design challenges; it was a rocky hillside lot that had an intermittent runoff stream bisecting the upper portion of the designated building envelope, the view toward the ski mountain was across adjacent properties and was best at the higher (harder to reach) end of the lot and the lower portion of the lot had another runoff channel that needed to be crossed to access the building area.
Our solution was a multi-level design that subdivides the house into two primary sections with a bridge to access the upper portion of the building envelope across runoff streambed. This portion of the house contains the family’s private spaces with views to the ski mountain but also up the open, natural valley on the north side of the house. The lower contains the more public spaces and the guest suite.
While the ski mountain view was important to the house concept, the view up the sage covered hill is a much more important part of the unique experience of the home. The client chose to minimize the impacted area of the site, keep it as natural as possible and for the home to be a transition site between the heavily irrigated and landscaped areas in the older parts of the subdivision and the natural open hillside.