Sited at the lot’s center, Six Square House becomes the nucleus of the property as well as the client’s primary on-site residence, with the farmhouse becoming the guest home.
Young Projects designed Six Square House as a contemporary counterpart to the property’s farmhouse, which the client had outgrown. The studio set out to create a new residence that nods subtly to the historic architecture of Long Island, while radically reimagining a traditional barn typology as an elegant, innovative home.
Approaching Six Square House from the front of the property provides a view of the garage and living room modules, separated by a polished concrete path that leads directly into the home’s focal point: a triangular courtyard. The deep-grey rainscreen facade is striking. The slatted roof aligns with slatted exterior walls to create long, vertical striations that begin at the roof ridge and cascade to the ground. Roof and exterior walls are constructed from the same material: charred, stained, and sealed Accoya rainscreen and Western Red Cedar rainscreen. These are durable and low-maintenance engineered woods that play off of the farmhouse’s historic cedar facade while reading as distinctly contemporary.
In terms of plan, the six modules that make up Six Square House tessellate around the central triangular courtyard. For Young Projects, this arrangement offered a compelling visual balance between symmetry and asymmetry, depending on the inhabitant’s point of reference in the home. The hybrid roofscape, which combines aligned roof ridges and curving eaves, enhances this dichotomy.
The tessellated arrangement also creates strategic programmatic divisions across the home, with each module loosely tied to a different use: living, kitchen, main bedroom, secondary bedroom, porch, and garage, all which encircle the triangular courtyard. Additionally, this layout takes advantage of the surrounding landscape, with each module offering a different view of the lush property.
Bedrooms feature framed views of the site’s mature and gnarled trees for privacy. In particular, the main bedroom offers a direct view to an old purple beech tree, which is very dear to the client. Living spaces open directly onto a landscape designed for entertaining: central courtyard, meadow, and pool house. The kitchen, located at the center of the house, is adjacent to the “left-over” triangular courtyard and looks through the open porch that frames views of landscape beyond.
The living areas and kitchen are linked, resolving as a large open space that emphasizes the undulating flow of the ceiling—a result of the irregular roofscape above.
While the ceiling undulates through the common area, it is marked by a ruled geometry; the wood framing itself is not bent, rather each straight rafter rotates slightly relative to its neighbors, developing a curving surface in aggregate.
Throughout the home, material selections and their corresponding color palette follow a neutral, organic spectrum, codified by a given space’s use. Black and platinum grey materials define the home’s exterior: the polished concrete patios and charred Accoya facade and roofscape. Ochre-hued cedar clads the home’s hybrid indoor/outdoor zones: the triangular courtyard and porch, as well as the frames for all exterior-facing doors and windows. Finally, the interior sheathed in alabasters and whites: walls and ceilings are gypsum plaster, flooring and millwork is white oak and ash, and countertops and selected shelving are light marble (Calacatta Caldia, Calacatta Gold, Mountain White, Olympian White).
Project Name: Six Square House
Architects: Young Projects – http://young-projects.com/
Location: Bridgehampton, New York, United States
Area: 3500 ft²
Year: 2021
Photographer: Alan Tansey – http://www.alantansey.com/
Structural Engineer : Silman
Landscape Architecture : Coen + Partners
Styling : Matter Made, Young Projects
General Contractor : Taconic Builders
#housedesign #americanhouses #contemporaryhome