The Dangle-Byrd project was an opportunity to explore the challenge of maintaining the spirit of craftsmanship within a modern domestic landscape. Set on a wooded five-acre site in rural Pennsylvania, the house’s elemental approach to materials engages the neighboring handcrafted Amish farm buildings.

The elegant engineering of farming equipment inspired the unusual structure of the house and local Pennsylvania trussed bridges.  The resulting form is a steel “exo-skeleton” with a wood and glass box suspended within the exposed frame.

Severe in form, the materiality and craft of the house allows it to become part of the surrounding landscape. The blackened cedar boxes combine the architects’ Japanese background with the simplicity of the Pennsylvania farm buildings. A massive “hand set” stone chimney anchors the house. The luminous floating glass walls of the living room contradict this permanence. The honest steel structure and rough cedar boxes reinforce the importance of “making” rather than “concealing”.