This building was commissioned as a library and writing studio for a historian.

It is located on a property adjacent to the client’s home and is approached on foot through a stand of trees. There is no drive or path. The library sits at the threshold of an open field and a wood. A tidal stream is visible through the woods, at the rear of the property.
Photography: Michael Moran
A twelve-foot tall door is the entry façade. Due to the siting and geometry of the building, little else of the building is visible on approach. A wood staircase is immediately seen on entering, leading up to an unrevealed but glowing space. The library space is at the top of the stairs, apparently set in the tree canopy of the woods. The library was conceived as a tranquil day-lit space for reading, writing, and thought. Light fills the room from above and animates the space with the changing brightness and color of the day. Photography: Michael Moran
The walls of the study are lined with books. The windows are integrated into the bookcases, creating a sense of being enveloped by books and the surrounding foliage. The kitchens, bathrooms, storage, and dumbwaiter are all concealed in a core structure within the single volume of the building. The staircase, interior wall lining, bookcases, cabinetry are straight grain Douglas fir.

The structure of the library is a series of parallel steel portal frames that were shop built and delivered to the site. Wood framing spans between the steel ...