American studio Schwartz and Architecture has completed a cedar-clad accessory dwelling unit on a California property that is meant to serve as "a jumping off point for a modern wine country design".
The Diamond ADU is part of a family estate in Sonoma, a historic town in northern California's winemaking region.
Schwartz and Architecture has completed an accessory dwelling unit in Sonoma
The property has a main house and several outbuildings, each of which competes for attention, said San Francisco-based Schwartz and Architecture.
The architects set out to create an ADU that would appear demure from certain perspectives yet "come alive" upon approach.
The ADU is part of a family estate
During the design process, they looked to farm structures that dot Sonoma Valley, many of which are dilapidated and have "their own strange elegance", the team said. "Their original, steeply sloped roofs are now drooping into low-slung structures, peeling apart, allowing in unexpected puddles of natural light, and revealing fragments of their interior framing to the outside elements," the team said.
Its design was informed by surrounding farm structures
"How might we use the qualities of these decaying yet compelling utilitarian buildings as the jumping off point for a modern wine country design""
In response, the team conceived a 1,200-square-foot (111-square-metre) dwelling that consists of two volumes with a foyer and sheltered patio r...