East Windsor Residence / Alter Studio

 JH Jackson Photography

Extraordinary views in the heart of the city and a small buildable footprint limited by restrictive easements prompted a thin, three-story home with the main living spaces and master suite on the top floor – essentially a one-bedroom loft with 270° views. A 16’ ipe screen envelopes the body of the house, and rests delicately atop a base of long courses of black Leuders limestone.

Photographs and details of East Windsor Residence after the break.

Architects: Alter Studio
Location: Austin, TX
Contractor: Crowell +
Landscape: David/Peese Design
Project Area: 4,500 sqf
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Paul Finkel Photography, JH Jackson Photography

 JH Jackson Photography

The visitor enters through a pivoting glass door, where the natural stone gives way to its dressed counterpart, and is immediately greeted by a stair of massive ebonized oak treads floating above twin steel channels, and hanging in a three-story vertical space. Beyond, an etched glass wall captures the projected shadows of a stand of giant bamboo, and a band of clear glass directs one’s gaze out to a private garden.

 Paul Finkel Photography

Punctuating the ipe facade are two steel box windows, their mirror-like reflection or deep shadow are posed against the filigree of the screen. In the evening this screen transforms into a lantern revealing a collection of spaces behind. The screen also holds the possibility of transforming the building when two 10’ sections dramatically unfold and reveal the formal dining room.

 Paul Finkel Photography

Upstairs, efforts are made to embrace the expansive view with an unmitigated ceiling plane that provides a surface for reflected light, while the screen’s 18” extension above the floor level gently corrals the visitor. Adjacent power lines to the west are eschewed, although a constellation of portholes arrayed across this wall embrace the dramatic western light and enliven the facade from the high street beyond. Here, an open plan is accentuated by laminated low-e corner glazing, twin Akari lanterns and sliding panels. Exquisitely matched Lacewood veneer cabinetry and a marble bathing area punctuate the ensemble and add a sense of finesse and delicacy throughout.