Objective: design
a two bedroom, two-bathroom house with a two-story living room and
a loft.
Special challenges: the design had to accommodate
a very modest budget.
Additional Information:
In order to provide the rooms and spaces at the requested budget,
the design approach resulted in a simple "box."
The site is a sloping lot in an avalanche zone on
the west side of Shadow Mountain (an extension of Aspen Mountain).
The county required the construction of an avalanche deflecting
wall separate from the structure. The wall took the form of an "L"
in plan, with the corner of the wall pointing toward the potential
slide path, positioned approximately 100 feet from the southeast
corner of the house.
Because of the slope of the building site, it was
decided to place the "box" partially into the existing
grade. The entry, garage, laundry, and second bedroom with adjoining
bath occupy the lower level, which is below grade at the southeast
area, and above grade at the northwest area. The kitchen, living
room, powder room and home office occupy the second level. The dining
room floor is a few feet below the floor of the living room. The
Kitchen and living room are open to a deck at grade at the south
elevation. The master bedroom and bath occupy the third level loft,
which is open to the living room below.
The garage and entry are located at the only portion
of the lot accessible by a driveway which occurs on the west side
of the house. The largest groupings of windows occur at the south
elevation for solar heat gain. This elevation faces the surrounding
National Forest. All the windows (except for the horizontal window
at the master bedroom) were designed as openings related to a simple
geometric grid.
The group of four photographs (at the bottom, clockwise
from the upper left) show (1) the north elevation (2) the deck at
the master bedroom (3) a portion of the interior window wall at
the deck at the master bedroom, and (4) the northeast corner of
the living room.
People often ask about the practicality of a "flat"
roof in a heavy snow area such as Colorado. Actually the roof is
not flat, but is sloped one-quarter-inch per foot to an internal
drain, leading underground to an opening in the sloped site below
the house. One advantage of a "flat" roof is that icicles
never become a problem. Interestingly, because of the high altitude,
abundant sunshine and wind during snowstorms, snow rarely accumulates
to more than several inches on the roof, well below the structural
design load.
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