Negotiating a rolling wooded site overlaid with both historic review and terrain management constraints, a portion of the house bridges a minor dry arroyo to locate the main volume amongst the piñons, with the best views of downtown Santa Fe.  Metaphorically, the home bridges past and present: traditional construction with high performance building systems, and modern spaces with richly textured materials.

The covered entry sequence takes one through a courtyard flanked by the guest ‘casita’ and rec room that connects to the courtyard via a glazed garage door, and draws you to the main entry past a single, natural cedar ‘portal’ column.  An outdoor ‘kiva’ fireplace anchors an outdoor living space contained within the courtyard.

The dining room employs wood and cable stay trusses to span the arroyo, providing a light, windowed frame for viewing the wildlife-filled site. In contrast, the  living room is firmly anchored to the land with plastered ICF walls, concrete floors and a custom rammed earth masonry heater fireplace mass.  The girl’s “wing” a half level up visually connects to the living room with a bench in the rammed earth wall.

The rammed earth adds beauty as well as thermal mass on the interior, increasing the home’s passive solar performance.  Radiant heating is featured in the floor slabs, and in the bench and banquette concrete tops at the dining bridge.  Deeply weathered salvaged wood accents the interior core, and locally harvested spruce featured at most ceilings.

The project has achieved LEED Platinum level certification, employing many energy and resource conserving features, plus a photovoltaic array that provides nearly all of the home’s electrical needs on an annually averaged basis.