LOCATION

Colorado Springs, CO (Black Forest)

YEAR

2022

STATUS

Conceptual

PROJECT TYPE

Single Family Residence

SIZE

4,380 Square Feet, 3 Bed/ 3.5 Bath

ARCHITECTURE TEAM

Adam Wagoner, Justin Towart

RENDERINGS

Bobak Studio

This project is sited on the corner of a rectangular, looped dirt road in rural area outside of Colorado Springs. Resulting from a forest fire ten years ago, the neighborhood is a patchwork of grass meadows and dense Ponderosa Pine groves. The idea for this new ranch home was to create a subtle, low-slung design that melds into the landscape and frames the forest both in plan and elevation while also suggesting a new interpretation of the ranch typology (both formally and in terms of the sustainable design strategies employed). Designed to complement the site’s undulating topography, the roof plane stays at the same elevation. In the more private areas of the house, the plan is bermed into the earth to diminish its exterior height, yet in the more public areas, the floor plane follows the falling slope of the ground to create interior volume.

The ranch house style is typified by a single story, low-to-the-ground massing with vaulted ceilings and deep overhangs. This type of home, prominent through the US, but especially in Colorado, popularized more informal, open floor plans with less divisions between rooms. While the typical ranch house created more open layouts as compared to previous, Victorian planning, the organization of its floor plan was normally separated into a clear division of public/open and private/enclosed zones. The design for this home takes these dichotomies further by exaggerating the enclosure of the individual private spaces and uses 3D printed concrete “program pods” to loosely define free-flowing public space that is generously connected to nature via full height timber curtainwalls.

The program pods make up one of three vertical elements of the project. Interspersed within the project are three courtyards that allow nature to grow at the heart of the house and allow for additional daylighting and ventilation. A standardized rhythm of heavy timber columns set the structure of the project and support a rectangular, cross laminated timber (CLT) roof.