Page Road House :

The house aimed to be a place to provide enough spaces to contain a crowd, while still being an inviting and intimate retreat the rest of the time.

The architects’ strategy was to compose the plan first and then wrap it in a tight skin, so the building’s function is the source of its exuberant form. Spaces are arranged along the interior according to frequency of use and various levels of privacy to break down the 6995-sf space into discrete interlocking volumes. The kitchen and primary living spaces occupy the ground level, with direct access to the terraces and the adjacent landscape. In the living room, floor-to-ceiling windows are set at grade to create a seamless and porous relationship with the landscape. The master bedroom suite is accessed via two separate sets of stairs, neither of which is directly connected to the public spaces to preserve privacy during events. The rest of the house’s program areas are located across a wide landing at the main entry, which offers another layer of privacy from visitors. Placing all of the spaces the residents use most frequently—the kitchen and main living spaces, master bedroom and offices—in easy reach effectively reduces the house’s apparent scale. Strategic cuts in the building skin allow for diagonal views through the house and out to the landscape beyond, thereby drawing relationships between seemingly isolated spaces so multiple areas can be appreciated simultaneously.