Tour a Modernist Rocky Mountain Residence by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects
Within the mid Twentieth-century, winter-sports fanatics allied with deep-pocketed buyers started to remodel Rocky Mountain cities that had way back gone bust, getting down to create ski and recreation locations. In these early days, it was not solely unusual to see modernist buildings take root, with most of the greats—Mies van der Rohe, Richard Neutra, Eliot Noyes, and Herbert Bayer—designing early works in locations like Aspen and Jackson Gap. However within the closing many years of the previous century, preferences shifted towards kinds drawn extra from Outdated West kitsch, making homes detailed with heavy rough-cut timber and stone.
Extra lately, although, a brand new technology of householders and their designers is rediscovering the probabilities of modernism in these high-altitude settings. One of many architects placing their stamp on this panorama is Brian MacKay-Lyons. His agency, MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, has constructed a physique of labor that has grow to be synonymous together with his native Nova Scotia, however has additionally been rising a portfolio within the Rockies, together with this home for a pair from California.
That couple got here to this undertaking with a shared love for this a part of the world, however they diverged, at the very least initially, on the architectural strategy. As MacKay-Lyons remembers of early design conferences, “One needed to slot in, and the opposite needed to make an announcement.” The architect discovered a 3rd approach. By turning to western pink cedar because the façade materials, he linked the home to the area’s long-standing constructing custom, permitting it to “slot in,” however the form he proposed—a flattened wooden cylinder resting on a concrete base—created the form of visible impression the shoppers additionally sought.
The shape does way more, although, since it’s designed to carry out in a tricky atmosphere, perched as it’s on a steep slope 9,000 ft above sea stage the place winds are excessive, snowfall is heavy, and the solar is intense. Set in an atmosphere that may rise up to 40 ft of snow every winter, a home stored low to the bottom would include an enormous problem. “Except you’re Santa Claus, you’re not moving into that home,” says MacKay-Lyons, who labored with Edge Builders to assemble this residence. The concrete podium, which homes visitor suites, does double responsibility, elevating the construction above the snow pack and bracing it from the winds that come ripping by way of this panorama. With this association, the owners enter the home from above, descending into the primary room from the driveway positioned upslope.
