Designed by the skilled architects of a firm named Arc11, the Syncline House can be found near Boulder, Colorado, and it is a wonderful place to come home to indeed. It is a comfortable and spacious residence that offers exquisite views of its surrounding environment. However, its main highlights are actually related to energy efficiency.
The Syncline House was designed to be self-sufficient, and so it was equipped with a ground loop heat exchange system and with a highly efficient photovoltaic electrical system of ten kilovolts, which provides all the necessary energy for various domestic appliances, compressors and pumps. Since the western part of the house is battered by strong winds regularly, it features a strengthened wall that was made using a steel brace frame vertical vierendeel trusses.
The 2 levels of the abode are connected by a beautiful staircase that flaunts glass railings and “floating” wooden steps. The living room is one of the most impressive social areas, especially since it comes with a fireplace, a flat-screen TV, comfortable sofas and armchairs.
From the architect:
The project was conceived as a threshold between the city and the mountain park. The client, an entrepreneurial and professional rock climbing couple, requested the house to be “a place where town life can be left behind.” The house is a threshold between both the cultural and geologic creases: one between the domestic and the feral, the other between horizontal and vertical. Through a domestic grove of flowering trees, a solid wood wall, broken only by a perpendicular stone wall, opens to the house interior. Once inside, the stone wall becomes a thickened poche of mechanical and service elements leading through to the west wall of the house, a glazed wall framing the mountain parks.
The western wall phenomenally erodes, revealing the landscape with varying degrees of openness. At the entry, framed apertures provide controlled vignettes of the landscape from foreground meadow to high ground cliffs. As the entry opens to the living spaces the apertures transform in scale to reveal the expansive landscape in its entirety. At the southwest corner thirty feet of glass retracts into the walls, dissolving the boundary between the domestic and the wild; the living spaces are then bounded only by the uplifted cliffs beyond. Reciprocally, the native meadow to the west folds onto the garage roof providing easy outdoor access for visiting guests in the house’s guest suite.
A simple stair cantilevers from the stone wall. Climbing the stairs, the foreground, mid range, and ridge views are sequentially revealed. Experientially scissoring into the landscape and back into the house the stairs connect the mountain park with the house. The west wall of glazing extends the western room boundaries to the wall of rock and meadows beyond. The east wall remains closed, allowing only privileged, controlled views and light from the clerestory above.
Building Technology
Working within some of the strictest energy performance codes in the country, the house is designed to be self sustained utilizing a ground loop heat exchange system that taps into the very bedrock seen at the distant ridge. A ten kilovolt photo-voltaic electrical system powers pumps, compressors and the domestic electrical needs.
To support an envelope comprised of 50% glazing, a structural steel frame is used in place of traditional stick framing throughout the home. The western facade was challenged by height and wind exposure. The thickened wall is a steel brace frame that incorporates vertical vierendeel trusses to resist the 120 mile per hour winds coming down out of the mountains. Additionally, it accommodates the primary vertical mechanical chases.
Photos by Raul J. Garcia
