Rust may seem like the last thing you want on a metal building, but corten steel is different. Also known as “weathering steel,” or by its trademark name COR-TEN, it’s made of alloys that don’t need to be painted because their surface forms a stable rust-like appearance after exposure to weather. It gets its name from two of its primary properties: corrosion resistance and tensile strength.

Measuring about 4,000 square feet, the house has a steel and concrete inner frame finished off with corten steel and glass.
The firm explains that the home’s “cruciform-ike assemblage contains three bold architectural volumes clad in corten steel,” adding that “conceptually the project is organized by three mutually perpendicular planes (the three Cartesian coordinates of x, y, and z): an entry tunnel/bridge, a tower which contains the vertical circulation (staircase and elevator), and the main habitable space, which is suspended weightlessly above the valley below.” “In essence, this is a dwelling meaningfully stripped of all nostalgia from the material world. One is immediately reminded of the great German romantic poets and painters like Caspar David Friedrich and the poet Heinrich Heine, who’s work emphasized the tension between the daily world and the irrational and supernatural projections of creative genius. The project is a ruin from the future and its poetic power lies in its supreme muteness, as a place to conte...