The site was a small narrow lot along a busy street with potential views to the Bay. Placing the house on the furthest top most edge of the lot and sloping the landscape up from the house to the street results in more privacy without the use of high fences. The sloping lawn away from the house blocks the view of cars passing by and frames the water views. The client wanted a house that had views of nature despite the closeness to neighboring properties and a feeling of getting away from each of the functional spaces.

Inspired by the open structure of the nearby DeKooning studio, this compact house situated near the water in The Springs, Long Island, was built as a weekend home with the flexibility of an industrial space and a series of rooms and porches at the scale of a cabin.

Designed as a kit of parts and made from affordable and easy to obtain materials, the house is held up by three gangnail truss frames. The formal strategy is set up by playing the diagonal geometry off the parallelogram shape of the plan.  The resulting shapes and angles provide multiple opportunities for windows, increasing cross breezes and views into the landscape from all spaces of the house.

Working humble materials (plywood, sheet-metal roofing, concrete foundation platforms, gravel, etc.), the geometry of the house was used to create long sloping canopies as a reference to the site’s land which gradually slips into the sea. The figure of two porches, one interior and the other exterior creates the narrative for the house - indoor and outdoor living.