Page 29 - International Architecture & Design Sotheby's Summer 2016

Orcas Island, Wash.
In this context, a massive house would feel like an intrusion, and so “the focus was on quality over quantity,” says Joe Herrin, a principal at Heliotrope. The building is 1,600 square feet, with three compact bedrooms at one end and a generous suite of living room, dining room, kitchen and outdoor deck. It’s a narrow bar that runs east to west, with views south over the water and north to a forested slope.
And in this region, nature makes its presence felt. Herrin “really knew the area, and he understood the weather so well,” the owner says. “That was very important in shaping the house.” When the three sets of window walls are opened, breezes run right through the north, south and east sides of the structure and through its public rooms.
But there are often times when it’s necessary to close them up, as the house catches powerful southerly winds, especially in winter. “It’s like a fireman has pointed a firehose at your house,”
Herrin says. “It’s just extraordinary.” With this in mind, the archi- tects provided a set of sliding barn doors that can enclose both the window walls and a narrow covered porch. Sealed up in this way, the house is impervious to weather and to any intruders; but when the doors are open, it’s a signal that the owners are at home, which their friends and neighbours can read from far out on the water.
The threshold where indoors and outdoors meet—which has always been a crucial point in modernist buildings—has been handled elegantly by the architects here. You step south from the house’s end-grain fir floor onto long boards of cedar that run left to right in the covered porch, and then proceed onto identical slats of cedar on the open deck beyond. And then, down a single step, the earth: no railing or other barrier stands in your way. This is because the house was placed (and the rocks beneath it slightly built up) to create a gentle transition from house to landscape. “It took a lot of finessing,” Herrin says, “but it really makes a
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