This contemporary desert home in Palm Springs, USA, has been designed by architect firm Woods + Dangaran. From siting to floor plan to finishes, this residence is deeply connected to the desert environment and its context in the hills above Palm Springs. Surrounded by boulders and spanning a natural arroyo, the home is lifted above existing site features, yet still retains a powerful connection to the earth. The architecture—emphasizing horizontal lines, natural materials, and visual and physical linkages between indoors and out—celebrates and elevates the tenets of desert modernism. Exterior walls of earth-toned plaster and textured concrete masonry units tie the slab-on-grade structure to the site. Deep roof overhangs are wrapped in brass paneling. Strategically-placed floor-to-ceiling glazing frames stunning views of the desert in all directions. A glass-enclosed bridge connects two wings of the home and creates a central atrium that can be viewed from nearly every room. Large sliding glass doors run the length of the great room and provide an uninterrupted transition to an outdoor dining area, deck, pool, spa, fireplace, and lounge.
Credits & source: Woods + Dangaran | images by J. Fletcher.
If my only impressions of this project were to be based on plan, section and elevation, and if my only images of this project excluded those that had views to the landscape, I would be hard pressed to place this house in a desert environment.
The living/dining/kitchen island/kitchen appliance wall set in an axial alignment has become ubiquitous in “high” design and dominates today’s architectural media. It is a trope that is well past obsolete and boring in any context or timeframe.
The architects are very talented and skilled. Regrettably rather than learn from the complex designs of Aalto, Mies, Corb, and FLW, or better, the lessons from regionally oriented architects like Wurster, Escherick, Yeon, Belluschi or many others, this style of modernism which is reduced to boxy forms whose walls of glass disregard all sense of context, location and climate.
I look forward to more expressive and site/climate sensitive and expressive work from this excellent firm in the future.
Raw but beautiful 🙂