Stamford CT House

This is a new home in a lush, wooded corner of Connecticut. The property centers on a quiet pond and the pond is echoed by three new man-made "ponds" -- two for reflection and one for swimming -- all surrounded by the sheltering forms of the house.

The design of the residence is defined by arms which embrace a courtyard, then reach for the larger wooded and ponded space, to open every part of the residence to the natural beauty of the site as the house moves with the contours of the land. The house is made of a rough-hewn Canadian stone -- both inside and out. The roofs are covered with copper shingles, and inside, the structure of each roof is exposed, to form a geometric pattern of birch beams. Each room has a separate pyramidal roof and the effect of this series of roofs is a "village" of rooms.

The floors are rose limestone and cherry wood, and the ceilings and beams and wood details are Finland birch. The windows -- like the roof -- are copper.

The design is both complex and simple, in different ways. It is complex in the way the architecture expresses the structures of the spaces and the way it combines materials. It is simple in the way the materials are used - exactly as their properties determine. Stone as stone; copper as copper; wood as wood. Like a human body, a building lives because of the integrity of the components that work together in harmony and in strict conformance with their properties.

This work of organic architecture exhibits the same quality of integrity -- the integration and harmony of the components that arise from the qualities and properties of the materials used.