{"id":390875,"date":"2025-09-02T03:23:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T03:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/390875\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T03:23:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T03:23:19","slug":"narchitects-finishes-clt-house-with-cladding-used-by-early-settlers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/390875\/","title":{"rendered":"nArchitects finishes CLT House with “cladding used by early settlers”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mass timber<\/a> framing and live-edge cedar siding are among the elements used by the founders of Brooklyn studio nArchitects<\/a> to create a lake house<\/a> for themselves in the Hudson Valley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Located near the town of Rhinebeck in Dutchess County, CLT House sits on an eight-acre (3.2-hectare) lakefront site and emerges from a clearing in the woods.<\/p>\n

\"OverheadCLT House is set on a lake in the Hudson Valley<\/p>\n

The holiday home<\/a> was designed by nArchitects<\/a> founders Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang\u00a0to serve as a nature retreat<\/a> for themselves and their two teenage children.<\/p>\n

Environmental concerns were top of mind when the duo set out to design the house. The two-storey structure is sited 200 feet (61 metres) away from the lake and was designed to have “a light touch and positive impact on its site”, the team said.<\/p>\n

\"ExteriorThe holiday home is made almost entirely from CLT<\/p>\n

“The two-storey house was designed with progressive sustainability goals in terms of material and energy use, and a spatial organisation that leverages the opportunities of cross-laminated timber in relation to its natural surroundings,” the duo explained.<\/p>\n

The house appears as an irregular box \u2013 the ground level laid out like a square with askew lines, and the upper floor like a plus sign.<\/p>\n

\"Live-edgeLive-edge cedar siding was used to clad the facade<\/p>\n

Exterior walls are wrapped in waney-edge boards, also known as live-edge siding, which nArchitects describes as\u00a0“the oldest exterior wood cladding technique used by early settlers”.<\/p>\n

“This untreated cedar<\/a> siding will weather variably over time, depending on its orientation and canopy coverage from trees,” the team explained.<\/p>\n

\"KitchenCLT elements are left exposed on the interior<\/p>\n

The building sits atop a concrete foundation, but the walls, floors and roof were entirely constructed of cross-laminated timber<\/a> (CLT) \u2013 a material that is still rarely used in the US but steadily gaining popularity, according to nArchitects<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“CLT is an ecological, efficient and fire-resistive building system that also provides a warm and natural feeling,” the duo said.<\/p>\n

The panels were installed in 11 days \u2013 a short timeframe that helped minimise disturbance to the site and the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t
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Solk Architecture places white house on Hudson Valley hilltop\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The 2,200-square-foot (204-square-metre) interior is defined by large windows and sliding glass doors that offer immersive views of the lake and forest.<\/p>\n

Social areas, including the living, dining and kitchen, are organised as a continuous space on the ground level around a central core.<\/p>\n

\"LivingSkylights funnel sun into the interior<\/p>\n

The second floor holds three bedrooms, a study and a bathroom. Each corner of the plus-shaped upper level is open to below, with mirrored skylights<\/a> that illuminate different spaces at different times.<\/p>\n

“Skylights \u2013\u00a0clad with mirror panels on the interior \u2013\u00a0punctuate three of the corners, injecting shafts of real and reflected daylight within, like the hand of a clock rotating around the core throughout the day,” the team said.<\/p>\n

One wall overlooking the ground floor is filled in with mesh<\/a> rope, adding a playful touch.<\/p>\n

\"GreenA bright-green staircase leads to the private spaces<\/p>\n

The home’s spatial organisation was derived from a scheme created by nArchitects in 2008 for Ordos 100<\/a>, an unbuilt real estate development in Inner Mongolia curated by artist Ai Weiwei<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Their initial scheme was for a house totalling 10,000 square feet (929 square metres). But for this iteration, nArchitects scaled down the size and increased the sustainable elements.<\/p>\n

The new home is defined by its “monolithic use of CLT”, with the wooden panels left exposed throughout.<\/p>\n

\"BedroomTimber furniture matches the tone of the walls<\/p>\n

To contrast with the timber, the team added custom metal elements, such as a bright green staircase<\/a>, and bold finishes, such as speckled black-and-white terrazzo<\/a> surfaces in the downstairs bathroom.<\/p>\n

The house is fitted with renewable energy systems, including geothermal wells paired with a radiant floor system to provide heating and cooling. Solar panels fitted on the roof “generate more than enough electricity for daily usage”, according to the studio.<\/p>\n

\"NettedOne wall overlooking the ground floor is filled in with mesh rope<\/p>\n

The project also entails landscape interventions aimed at improving the site’s biodiversity. Any removed trees were replaced with a more diverse range of species, while invasive aquatic plants were cleared away to improve the flow and quality of the lake water.<\/p>\n

Other projects by nArchitects include a nature centre on New York’s Jones Beach<\/a> that produces as much energy as it consumes, and architectural enhancements to Chicago’s Navy Pier<\/a>, including kiosks with undulating steel canopies and a curvilinear wall sheathed in louvres.<\/p>\n

The photography is by Michael Moran<\/a> of OTTO.<\/p>\n

Project credits:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Architect:<\/strong> nArchitects
Structural engineer:<\/strong> Silman
MEP engineer:<\/strong> OLA
General contractor:<\/strong> UCE Fine Builders
Civil engineer:<\/strong> TM DePuy Engineering
Metal fabricator:<\/strong> 4th State Metals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mass timber framing and live-edge cedar siding are among the elements used by the founders of Brooklyn studio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[135468,4021,4020,135470,60341,4022,77,12968,7931,128944,135469,111914,135467,4447,17022,126129,126130,16,15,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-390875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-american-houses","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-cedar","12":"tag-cross-laminated-timber","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-holiday-homes","16":"tag-houses","17":"tag-hudson-valley","18":"tag-lake-houses","19":"tag-mass-timber","20":"tag-narchitects","21":"tag-new-york","22":"tag-residential-architecture-and-interiors","23":"tag-sectionall","24":"tag-sectionarchitecture","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115132564011725491","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}