The projecting slabs on this house are not a styling decision that happened to be useful. Their depth was set by the sun angle, and the elevation is what fell out of that.
Timber, stone and glass in the same wall, sorted by how much sun each face takes.
Context and Materiality
Start with the requirement that every pane of glass on the south and west sides is in shadow through the worst of the afternoon, and the section largely draws itself. Upper floors step forward over lower ones. Slabs run past the glass line by a metre or more. Terraces appear underneath, not because the brief asked for them but because the shade had to go somewhere and that space is worth using. What looks like a composition of stacked boxes is mostly a shading diagram that has been tidied up.
Interior Atmosphere
The cladding follows the same logic. Pale stone takes the exposed faces, where it reflects heat and stays bright at sunset. Timber slats are used only where they sit back under an overhang and will not weather in direct sun - the recessed bays, the underside of the projections, the panels between windows on the shaded elevations. Glass runs full height wherever it is protected and reduces where it is not. Read the elevation from a distance and the material changes look like a rhythm. Up close they are a record of which parts of the house get hit and which parts do not.
Published in Journal • Jan 2026
