Open House
Where the plains meet the foothills of Boulder, Colorado, architect E.J.
Meade designs a modern dwelling in concert with its surroundings.
After interviewing several architects to help them design a new home, a couple from Boulder, Colorado, invited several members from one of the front-running firms to visit the site. As the group settled for a picnic on a patch of lawn facing the Flatirons, the homeowner remarked, “This happens to be my favorite spot on the whole property.”
“Then this is where we should not build the house,” replied architect E.J. Meade, principal of Boulder-based Arch11, Inc. Of this unexpected response, Meade explains, “I believe we should all have the restraint to preserve the best places.”
The architect’s design philosophy resonated with his prospective clients. “We felt like we really communicated,” the homeowner says. “From that point on, Arch11 worked collaboratively with us and always treated us like part of the team.”
Despite its great views and location, the lot presented numerous challenges: an irregular, triangular shape, strict height restrictions from the city of Boulder, several easements, and a wetlands buffer zone and solar shadow restrictions that had to be respected. So Meade and his team created a computer model of the available envelope, taking the physical and regulatory limitations of the site into account. With the space mapped out, they began honing the design of the house.
“The homeowners love the outdoors, and they wanted a gateway between their town life and the mountains,” Meade says. “Initially, we talked more about the rituals of their life than about specific building features, because I wanted their house to foster the way they live day to day.”
To read details of this article, please visit this link.
After interviewing several architects to help them design a new home, a couple from Boulder, Colorado, invited several members from one of the front-running firms to visit the site. As the group settled for a picnic on a patch of lawn facing the Flatirons, the homeowner remarked, “This happens to be my favorite spot on the whole property.”
“Then this is where we should not build the house,” replied architect E.J. Meade, principal of Boulder-based Arch11, Inc. Of this unexpected response, Meade explains, “I believe we should all have the restraint to preserve the best places.”
The architect’s design philosophy resonated with his prospective clients. “We felt like we really communicated,” the homeowner says. “From that point on, Arch11 worked collaboratively with us and always treated us like part of the team.”
Despite its great views and location, the lot presented numerous challenges: an irregular, triangular shape, strict height restrictions from the city of Boulder, several easements, and a wetlands buffer zone and solar shadow restrictions that had to be respected. So Meade and his team created a computer model of the available envelope, taking the physical and regulatory limitations of the site into account. With the space mapped out, they began honing the design of the house.
“The homeowners love the outdoors, and they wanted a gateway between their town life and the mountains,” Meade says. “Initially, we talked more about the rituals of their life than about specific building features, because I wanted their house to foster the way they live day to day.”
To read details of this article, please visit this link.
