House FIVE is situated in the countryside context of a nearby river, wetlands, and the Berkshire mountain landscape beyond. The house incorporates qualities of the surrounding landscape into a series of spatial view vectors that orient and extend the interior experience into the larger site. Organized on a modest footprint across two floors, the design combines an open living, dining, and kitchen area on the lower level in a pinwheel configuration around a combined light shaft and primary stair leading to the upper floor.
The upper level inverts the open plan into a more compact arrangement, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms organized along a central hall and stair. The house’s formal presence draws from the unadorned vernacular silhouette and proportions often found in rural settings, while its construction and material expression engage a more unified and minimal architectural presence—realized through advanced building envelope performance and contemporary construction methods.
House FIVE employs construction methods that support both economy and energy performance. A prefabricated scissor truss system enables the sculptural integration of three skylights while allowing for a deep roof cavity filled with dense-pack cellulose insulation, achieving R60 roof performance. The 16-inch-thick exterior walls combine dense-pack cavity insulation with continuous exterior wood fiber board to reach R45 overall.
The house presents as a compact black volume in the landscape, with a ventilated facade construction clad in eastern white cedar modified using the traditional Shou Sugi Ban technique—providing both durability and material depth. A custom window and door profile was co-developed with the window manufacturer to meet the design’s aesthetic and thermal performance criteria.
Heating and cooling are delivered through a high-efficiency geothermal ground-source heat pump. The house meets current Passive House airtightness and energy standards, offering quiet, low-maintenance operation with consistent indoor comfort.
photography: David Hiepler
Consultants:
Lighting Design: DEREK PORTER STUDIO
Structural and Civil Engineering: Taconic Engineering, DPC
Mechanical Engineering (design build): Aztech Geothermal
Construction Management: EASTON COMBS
Publications (forthcoming)
House FIVE demonstrates that modest scale, environmental restraint, and architectural ambition can be resolved as a single act of design. Sited near the bank of the Konkapot River and adjacent significant wetland areas, with the Berkshire mountain landscape beyond, the project addresses four principles of the AIA Framework for Design Excellence: Integration, Energy, Ecosystems, and Change.
Design for Integration: The leitmotif of House FIVE is spatialized as a tension between the vernacular silhouette of the exterior and the dynamic spatial logics of the interior, which incorporate the qualities of the surrounding landscape—river, wetland, and mountain—as a series of view vectors that orient and extend daily life into the larger site. On the primary level, open living, dining, and kitchen areas turn in a pinwheel configuration around a combined light shaft and primary stair; the upper level inverts this openness into a compartmentalized arrangement of three bedrooms along a central hall. Outwardly, the house presents as a compact black volume, its ventilated facade clad in charred eastern white cedar.
The resolution of this tension begins at the roof. An efficient package of design-directed scissor trusses spans the 26-foot width clear, holding a 9:12 pitch on the exterior against a 7:12 pitch on the interior, and the deep truss section affords efficient insulation depths ranging from R-60 to R-80. At the primary skylight, the interplay of planar geometry allows a singular sculptural light lantern above the stairwell, open all the way to the main floor—revealing an internal height from main floor to ridge line that binds the two levels in a social complementarity between more active and more private spaces. The main floor ceiling is unadorned by recessed lighting, avoiding any registration of scale, while the exterior windows extend the full floor height of 8’-8”, expanding the sense of volume and connecting the interior more effectively with view and daylight.
Design for Energy: House FIVE was designed and executed to Passive House airtightness and energy standards, with construction selected to support both economy and performance. The compact two-story volume disciplines envelope area relative to floor area—the most economical of all passive strategies—while the view vectors place glazing where it delivers daylight and orientation rather than indiscriminate exposure. Economic efficiency is further realized in a well-coordinated advanced framing systems approach, including framing at 24 inches on center and the elimination of energy-inefficient framing details such as window jack buildup.
The envelope was developed from a first principles approach to building performance. The 16-inch-thick exterior walls combine dense-pack cellulose cavity insulation with continuous exterior wood fiber board to reach R-45 overall; the scissor truss roof cavity is dense-packed to values ranging from R-60 to R-80. A custom window and door profile was co-developed with the window manufacturer in order to integrate the technical performance with the aesthetic opportunities in the architectural expression of the thicker wall dimensions. The active systems work in tandem with the envelope’s thermal, moisture, and airtightness performance, allowing for a compact ground-source heat pump (geothermal) system providing heating, cooling, and domestic hot water; induction cooking eliminates combustion within the home. The house is all-electric and free of fossil fuel dependence, offering low-maintenance operation and consistent indoor comfort. Architect-led project construction management allowed for field execution and guidance for the construction trades, aligning the performance intent of the envelope at all details.
Design for Ecosystems: The house is sited adjacent to significant wetland areas within the 22-mile corridor of the Konkapot River, and both the design and the construction sequencing approached this condition with discipline and sensitivity to the existing natural environment. Although the original 1970s house maintained a 100-foot setback from the river, current Massachusetts conservation guidelines locate the house and any renovation within the 200-foot wetlands resource area. The strategy adopted was thus minimal disturbance and full reuse: the existing concrete foundation and basement, the septic system, the water well, and the related infrastructure associated with building in rural environments were all reused and repurposed. The geothermal boreholes—two bores at 250 feet each—were located within ten feet of the house, requiring only a short trench below the frost line to connect. The result is a project with no new excavation, no expanded clearing, and no additional encroachment at a sensitive ecological edge; the compact footprint holds the built claim on the land to what was already taken decades ago.
The view vectors make the wetland, river, and mountain landscape the substance of the interior experience, cultivating a daily and seasonal awareness of the ecosystem the occupants inhabit—weather and light become the household’s shared registration of place. Outwardly, the dark, quiet volume defers to the landscape it faces. The material palette at this sensitive edge is natural and vapor-open—charred eastern white cedar rainscreen, wood fiber, dense-pack cellulose—weathering and performing without the chemical load of synthetic assemblies. The Shou Sugi Ban charring is itself an ecological decision: durability achieved through a traditional technique rather than applied preservatives, incorporating weathering as an aesthetic that removes the need for periodic maintenance—paint or other chemical treatment cycles—in the context of the natural environment.
Design for Change: House FIVE, designed for durability and longevity, begins with the end of another building’s usable life-cycle. The original mid-1970s modular house was removed following structural deterioration, moisture failures, and asbestos abatement, having reached the end of its reasonable building life for health and human safety. Its concrete foundation remained sound, and the project fully reclaims it—along with the intact septic system and water well—an act of adaptive reuse that conserves the embodied work already invested in the site: the house continues as a dwelling without a fresh claim on the land.
The contrast is instructive. The predecessor was an expedient building that lasted just under fifty years and ended with a legacy of environmental hazards; its replacement is designed for endurance, with a durable ventilated facade, a vapor-open envelope that protects its own structure, and low-maintenance systems. With the contemporary successor, even the use of prefabrication is inverted: the scissor truss system deploys offsite fabrication in service of quality and economic efficiency rather than purely as construction expediency. The superinsulated, airtight envelope also provides passive performance, stabilizing indoor comfort with minimal active systems involvement. The simple, compact plan remains adaptable to changing patterns of family, work, and age.
Conclusion: House FIVE is the culmination of first principles research in building science in relation to contemporary construction, with the goal of building to best practices within the economic constraints of a compact home of less than 3,000 square feet (2,000 square feet and basement) and a modest total project budget. As a well-integrated solution, House FIVE serves as a model for disciplined building systems approaches directly impacting aesthetic clarification and interior environmental well-being. The approaches to ecosystem and change emerged as specific conditions of the site, where the need for adaptation and reuse—absorbed as an integrated approach to design thinking—quietly provides a model for the productive rejuvenation of rural sites in sensitive ecosystems.
