Our small house at Lake Tulloch is now complete with finishing touches by the owners. We posted some early pictures of the outside, on the blog in November; now here is a slide show of the interior, beautifully finished with earth/clay plaster from the site.
Passive comfort!
Skillful Means designed a home for land in the Sierras that features broad views in all directions, hot summers and cold winters, which is now being built by the owner…..The building is designed to be comfortable all year round. ”Conventional” peaked-roof sections linked together by undulating sections with flat roofs covered in vegetation. The green roofs will cool the building in summer, and abundant south-facing windows will collect heat in winter.
A curved window wall acts as a solar collector, and provides broad views from the living and dining areas. PV modules shade the kitchen.
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A two-story tower houses a private get-away, with doors opening onto the roof garden. The glass-enclosed spiral staircase to the tower is designed as a solar chimney which will draw ventilation through the house in summer, and warm the tower in winter. 
Construction is progressing at a great pace, and the goal is to be living in the house in a few short months!
Windy Hilltop
A house we designed for a hilltop site near Winters, California, has been going up through the winter, between rains.
The house is in two wings. Bedrooms are above the garage/shop. The living and dining areas, with patios on both sides, are connected to the bedrooms by a mudroom/laundry.
The house is carefully positioned to take advantage of broad views, and to provide a sheltered courtyard on the hilltop.
Shaping Up
Our strawbale house in Oakdale is taking shape: bales and lathing are almost complete, and the roof tiles are ready to go on. Plaster and drywall will be next.
At left, Skillful Meanie Benito Steen works on the entry to the round tower. Downstairs will be an office, and upstairs will be a sitting room with a balcony for views of migrating birds, the Sierra Mountains, and more.
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James Campbell walks past the entry door along the open colonnade that runs the length of the house and through the living and dining areas.
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A straw bale bench will follow the curves of the window wall that looks out on a lake and snowy mountains beyond.
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Skillful Meanies Cindy Lan, project designer, and Andy Fitanades, project supervisor, regularly confer on the many details of the project.
A Teen Center–with Teens!!
This summer we installed balees and lathing for the Teen Center in Riverbank, California. The Center opened a month ago, and when we visited last week, sure enough, it had TEENS in it! We’re happy to have been a part of making a wonderful place for them to hang out.
The curved straw bale walls provide alcoves in the open plan for different activities. The internet cafe features a bright red straw bale and plaster bench.
The simple shed roof is supported by large, rough posts, and the building is buttressed by the curved shape and strong metal X-bracing. The building was designed by Jon Hammond of Indigo Architects, and Menghetti Construction.
Framed for the New Year
Framing on our project in Oakdale is almost complete, and the bale crew has arrived on site to stack bales! These are views from the sunny courtyard. The two-story tower has views of the lake, and abundant waterfowl.
Harrison House Benefit
We had the great privilege to work with, and be inspired by, the composer Lou Harrison, while creating a beautiful retreat for him in the desert in Joshua Tree, California. Although Lou has passed away, the house he loved so well remains as part of his legacy, and is used today as an artist and musicians’ retreat, and for concerts and recordings.
Taking Shape
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We’re on the final stretch to completion of this small house at Lake Tulloch, in California’s Central Valley.
The house features a lime based plaster on the exterior, and earth plaster on the interior. The shape and materials of the house are designed to optimize solar gain, summer cooling, and resistance to wildfires. A complete photo voltaic electrical generation is now operating. The finish coats of earth plaster are being mixed, and cabinets are ready to be installed!
Site based design
Here is an example of what could be called “situational design”, design that arises out of the conditions of the project, the site to be built upon, the needs for shelter and utility, the conditions of the surrounding landscape, animals and natural phenomenon, and the life-style and desires of the future occupants.
In this case, a secluded site which was once carved out of a hillside by miners provides a sunny location in the middle of forest. The future occupants wanted a long house, stretching across the site, to be all on one level.
Since the land was already “damaged”, we felt free to move dirt around to achieve make it easier to integrate the building into the land, and to make it easy, to walk outside into nature to garden, eat, sit, or come and go. We shifted the minor wrinkles of the landscape, but still fit the house into the larger contours of the land, the water course, and the shape of the hillside.
Here is what we came up with or, we should say, here is a plan generated by all those conditions. The shapes, window placement, and location of rooms and activities all take advantage of the site conditions, and people and pets moving through the house simultaneously move through, and into, the surrounding nature.
(Click on the picture for a larger view).
The northwest corner, kitchen, dining and pantry, is buried about four feet to set the building into the landscape and shield from harsh summer sun. The south side is open to the sun for winter light and heat. The sleeping room and deck are quite, private and separated from the activities of the main house, and the yoga/meditation room is further isolated, with it’s own view and circular approach. A large patio allows for outdoor cooking and dining and is adjacent to the garden and pool for exercise and recreation and paths around the buildings allow for wheelchair access and shortcuts between activity nodes.
Labor Day Plastering and Plastering Laborers
This Labor Day marked a milestone for our project on Lake Tulloch; while jet skis and ski boats roared around the lake for the last time before sschool begins, our commercial plastering subcontractors blew on the exterior plaster. Inside, our earth plastering crew, the “natural” builders sifted and mixed batches of local earth for the second coat of plaster to be applied. During the week, we combined the crews, with a couple of the commercial plasterers working with our two best earth plasters–both women. They quickly formed a tight, efficient squad that turned out excellent work on a schedule that exceeded our best expectations, the marriage of two building cultures.
