When most people picture a minimalist home they think of strong horizontal geometric lines, minimal furniture free from ornamentation on the interiors and a relatively simple exterior façade.
The Allendale House in Cambridge, Massachusetts shares some of these traits, but with an extreme twist. The home boasts an eye catching sharp triangular façade in the middle of nowhere. William O’Brien Jr. entered the MOMA PS1 Young Architect’s Program and became a finalist for his innovative A-Framed home.
The house was designed for an idiosyncratic connoisseur client and her family. The home’s exterior boasts an enormous wall of glass that accentuates the extreme angle of the steep pitched gable triangular roof. Natural light pours into the interior spaces that include two floors of bedrooms and bathrooms housed in the wider side of the home. On the narrower, A-frame side of the home lays the public spaces and the kitchen.
‘The house aims to undermine the seeming limitations of a triangular section by augmenting and revealing the extreme proportion in the vertical direction, and utilizing the acutely angled corners meeting the floor as moments for thickened walls, telescopic apertures and built-in storage.’…Space Cool Hunting
There is coziness about this home in that the outdoors seem to blend easily with the interiors of the Allendale home, allowing for the unique experience of being one with nature.
The homeowners’ have an area for collections of wine, collectible books, and taxidermy relics in this small vacation home. A collectible area is a wonderful idea for a vacation home where homeowners enjoy being around what makes them feel comfortable and “at home”.
The expressed minimalist details throughout the home go to prove that architecture and design don’t have to look like the norm. In fact, out-of-the-box thinking and design innovation is what helped O’Brien land his finalist title. Congrats to William for coming up with an extreme house that suits the client’s needs perfectly and effortlessly.
All photo credits: Space Cool Hunting
