Project Description
Custom / 3,000 Square Feet or Less / Merit
Skyline Residence was designed as a guest house, but its first job was to provide a temporary living space on the owners’ remote property while their main house was under construction. The arrangement has had multiple benefits, says architect Robert Miller, FAIA, “because the owners are learning more and more about the site. The project is also kind of a mock-up for the main house.”
The building describes an east–west axis at the edge of a wooded escarpment, signaling visitors with a brilliant green landscape wall that leads to an equally bright red front door. Other “events,” including three projecting bays and a recessed porch with a translucent roof, enliven the building’s simple, barlike plan. Off-the-shelf components—exposed open-web rafters, standard window modules, ACX plywood roof decking—support a casual, cabinlike feeling. The jury members admired the house’s “economy of materials and repetition of structural systems,” calling the result “a lot of bang for the budget.” —Bruce D. Snider