We are not quite ready to announce that weathering steel is the new wood, but we are flirting with the idea.
We are suddenly noticing examples of weathering steel combined with massive panes of glass, raw concrete and untreated wood. And all this with results that don?t seem brutalist or cold but rather approachable and liveable.

In the case of the Miner Road family residence, steel rules supreme. Yet it was the oak trees and the site itself that initially attracted the owners.
And it is the house?s interaction with the surrounding nature that gives the home its now-so-obvious right to be exactly where it is and look exactly as it does.

It is a well-weathered steel sculpture that just happens to be a home.
The vistas from the inside speak especially loudly of belonging. The house belongs on this lot and looks like it?s always been there.
The Mine Road House is a product of the owners? vision of a sustainable, light-filled home with a modern presence, and the architect?s clear understanding of just such a vision.
Perhaps the sense of fitting in is partly the result of how San Francisco Bay area architect Greg Faulkner www.faulknerarchitects.com, landscape designer Thuilot Associates www.thuilot.com and interior designers at DZINE Concept created this new home directly on the footprint of the dilapidated previous house.

The Miner Road house?s owners are a couple with two young sons who had lived in Oakland for 17 years and were looking for more outdoor space for their so...