Contemporary NetZero Beach Home

Bow House is for a small family; makers of theatre and video, comedy. Whimsical satire permeates their home and presence. This is a place to retreat, to make work. It is a house but also a theatre in the woods. The project functions as an extended proscenium, a powerful curved opaque scenographic wall in tension with the flat lens, an aperture to the forest and the terrace. The project is a constantly evolving scenog-raphy, where the forest can be watched, slowly, the storms embraced, the moving sun becoming an evolving lighting instrument, the spectacle elevated. Theatre occurs continuously, even when the house is unoccupied as the forest transitions in colour and density. The bow defines the form, frames the unveiling of the site as the user moves across to the entry. The roof also bows, dropping as it pushes into the curve, a natural scup-per for the water gathered. The roof defines a spectrum of the public spatial condition inside, the interior of the curve at the lowest, then expanding sectionally along the slope. The wings support the place of performance, audience, enjoyment. The wings are the bedrooms and ensuites, each one projecting into its own part of the forest, privately. The primary space is punctuated by long stairs, running linearly through the house, becoming a ‘gradin’ on which to sit and view the theatre in the woods. This line becomes a powerful cabinetry wall as it moves to the wings and through the house. Bow House is situated near Truro on Cape Cod, a walk from a favourite beach but nested within a heavily wooded dramatically sloped 1.5 acre site. The trees remain, brushing up against the site and pathways, against the bow. The user enters the site from above, looking down the slope, the curve is evident, the carved punctuation for entry, before the form slides into the forest, indeterminate. On the bow, the cedar shingles create a shadowed text of haptic materiality. Enter through the punctuation in the bow, after glimpsing through the round apertures, you are placed in an intimate space, low ceilinged ante room. The space then projects, up into the forest, and steps down following the topography.

The house is a response to nature. The site is respected with limited topographic ma-nipulation and as few trees as possible removed. A HERS (Home Energy Rating Sys-tem) rating of bellow 7 has been achieved resulting in a NET ZERO project, ensuring resilient performance, with PV panels on the roof, and insulated wall panel construction, tripleglazed window walls and sensitive site placement.  The house works with the forest, in many ways.

The house creates a dialogue with the much-loved Inner Cape, the family moves from the house to the beach, from private moments in the forest to the much broader theatre of flat sand and the surf. Bow House is a threshold between these divergent natures, ocean and forest.