Fireprooing was an important part of the brief. ‘Every
client is concerned about ire,’ says Casper. ‘We’ve seen
ires in Scandinavia too, but California’s been on the
extreme end, and the ire department says this is the
new normal. It’s something the rest of the world will
start thinking about too as climate change happens.’
As well as championing concrete’s staying power,
the new building makes the most of the material’s
low-maintenance nature. The exterior is rough,
like the surface of rock, and comprised of lumber
board-formed concrete, treated with a sealant but
with no need for painting. Connecting the three
volumes together into one continuous form, the
roof is made of smooth-trowelled concrete slab, and
unfolds its crisp, multi-gabled silhouette against the
blue Californian sky.
Equipped to cope with nature and its vagaries,
the retreat’s architecture is also deferential to them.
Concrete loor plates are rooted into the side of the
thin mountain ridge that climbs slowly from rolling
valleys of cultivated vineyards, then peaks over a
steep ravine. To accommodate a swimming pool and
a plateau of garden space for the main house, the
guest units had to be pushed right to the edge of
the site, each stepped just over a foot down from
its neighbour and cantilevered into the wild.
‘I’m a big believer in concrete after doing this
project,’ says Casper, whose previous commissions
were largely in wood. ‘Both for its sculptural qualities
and its monolithic, permanent qualities. There’s also
something elemental and honest and, in a strange
way, quite natural about it.’Adds Lexie, ‘The irony is that it is a simple material,
but when you see the process that it takes to build
something 100 per cent in concrete – from the
formwork to burying every single cable and pipe –
it’s really intense. It’s like an inside-out building.’
The pair cite European stone houses as a design
reference. Yet perhaps even more than stone, concrete
has an immovable quality and a reassuring heaviness
in its solid poured form. The team lightened the
load here, with two glazed façades and a neat square
bathroom window on each unit.
Stepping in from beneath the Sonoma sun, guests
are drawn into the reined concrete interior, made of
a slimmer formwork. ‘We wanted everything to recede,
so everything in the house, with the exception of the
doors, was made of concrete,’ says Lexie. ‘We made the
sinks out of concrete, the bathrooms don’t have tiles,
and we painted the bath ixtures grey. Using solid pine
doors, we added a little bit of warmth to where you
would be touching the building.’
Once you’re inside this protective shell, nature
draws you back out the other side towards the
manzanita and pine trees beyond. The positioning
of the guest house units to follow the topography of
the ridge gave each one its own 180-degree panorama
of the formidable landscape. ‘You get these open
corners in each one of the rooms, which gives an
amazing spatial quality and makes the rooms feel
a lot biger. Most importantly, they really open up to
the view of the canyon, which is the most fantastic
thing about the site,’ says Casper. ∂
morkulnes.comFAR LEFT, ONE OF THE
BEDROOMS, FEATURING WALLS
AND CEILINGS IN SMOOTH-
FORMED CONCRETE; FLOORS
IN SMOOTH-TROWELLED
CONCRETE; AND DOORS IN
LYE-TREATED SOLID PINE WITH
CUSTOM-DESIGNED CARVED
WOODEN HANDLES
LEFT, A SMALL BUT PERFECTLY
PLACED WINDOW BRINGS
LIGHT INTO ONE OF THE
BATHROOMS, FURNISHED WITH
VOLA FIXTURES AND A PAIR
OF ‘FAVILLA’ LAMPS BY MANUEL
VIVIAN FOR AXOLIGHT‘To build something 100 per cent in concrete
is really intense. It’s like an inside-out building’
150 ∑
Architecture