Residential Design

VOL1 2019


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and people from Halifax go down there to work on specific things. We're renting space in a co-op building downtown. If the office grows to a certain point, we will build something. We don't have a design on being a big firm; we just want to go where people want to do something exciting. RD: What U.S. projects are in the pipeline now? BML: My background is in urban design, so we're designing sometimes individual homes and sometimes communities, like the Horizon neighborhood at the top of Powder Mountain in Utah, part of the Summit development. There are 30 houses at Horizon and they're ticking along—eight will be done in the next couple of weeks. We're also doing several custom homes for folks nearby, and we have clients in other places too. We're designing a ranch for one of the owners of Summit. RD: You've said that you see architecture as having a culti- vating influence on the landscape, like a sustainable farmer, so it looks like something that's always been there. What vernacular traditions and archetypes are you excited about exploring in this location? BML: People interpret regionalism as a limited perspective; it's not a style, but a professional skill. There's a famous book called Ways of Seeing, by John Berger, about how you develop your instinct for seeing place, your skills of observation. When you travel to a place, you see it clearer than the locals do. I've lived in Japan, Tuscany, California. We're kind of like travelers who have an eye for place, like climate, culture, landscape. At Horizon, community and privacy have to be in balance. Buildings are jammed together in the positive sense of creating community, courtyards, and microclimates. The commu- nity aspect is one of those things that's more or less universal. Ironically, it looks like a fishing village in Nova Scotia. RD: What is distinctive about Horizon's climate and landscape? BML: It is high desert, 9,000 feet, with incredible solar gain, and bright because of the sun reflecting off the snow. Horizon is on a very steep mountainside that gets 60 feet of snowfall each winter and has some of the highest wind loads in North America. The units are on stilts because if you have 60 feet of snow during the winter, you can't get into the house except from the second level. We used the topography to create 40- foot bridges that take you into the house without huffing and puffing or shoveling the staircases. Or you can drive straight into the second level and sleep down below. You want the bed- rooms below because you've got partitions, which are good for resisting wind loads. You want glass high up and cross walls down low. You're not trying to resist nature but work with it. This page: The cabins at Horizon range from 1,200 to 3,000 square feet, with bedrooms on the lower floor and open living on the upper. A series of ramps help the community cope with winter snowfalls of 60 or more feet. 14 RESIDENTIALDESIGNMAGA ZINE.COM VOL. 1, 2019 VERBATIM

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