There are forty-one oaks within this Portola Valley lot. They lie within the boundaries, dotting the rolling hills and shading the ground with their canopy. The clients, a couple retired from corporate careers and now immersed in their passion for photography, wanted the home to feel like a continuation of the landscape; they hired Field Architecture, a firm with a long history of designing homes that act in conversation with their site.
Photography: John Merkl
Jess Field sees the landscape?s orientation as ?an invitation? from the oaks. The architectural response was to create a series of pavilions, including a guest house, tennis court, and Zen garden. Together, they allow for a porosity that connects the oaks with only the lightest of touches. Photography: Steve Goldband
A sense of promontory is felt strongest in the dining room, where a sleek window box cantilevers over the hillside. It frames a view of the rich forest landscape and the unending Bay views off in the distance. The frame is simple: a warm wood floor and cool concrete walls, a visual respite from the liveliness outside. The trees formed the foundation of this material palette; the concrete elements take on the strong verticality of tree trunks, and the steel horizontal cantilevered canopies shelter with the same grace as sloping branches ? an architectural echo of the form of the oak tree.
Floor Plan
Field Architecture puts landscape at the core of their work, expanding on the narrow idea of ?site? (the ...