The Kutcher House is an essay on the need for both ‘prospect’ and ‘refuge’ when dwelling in the landscape. The house hovers above a 100’ long granite bolder, high above the sea and the shipping lanes. It employs a protective archetypal lean-to typology similar to that of the Danielson House. The standing-seam, galvalume metal roof folds down toward the forested north side, creating a rump-like gesture. The south façade is, by contrast, completely glazed.
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The Kutcher House employs the feng shui principle of an indirect entry sequence, here heightening the sense of refuge for the family of five that inhabits it. On approaching from the north one is first confronted by a 120’ concrete wall; the ocean view is withheld. On passing through an angle-iron gate, one arrives into the protected courtyard and leaves the wild, natural landscape behind. After “corkscrewing” up a scissor-stair onto the rock, the effort required to enter is rewarded with arrival to the serene, second level sanctuary-like living pavilion. The temple-like great room offers an uninterrupted prospect over the sea, like some anthropomorphic landscape-viewing helmet. Much of the sky is cropped from view, thereby emphasizing the ocean’s absolute horizon line—so much so, in fact, that when standing behind the 20’ kitchen island, one feels that the power of the Atlantic might cut you in half at the waist.
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The Kutcher House employs an elemental Miesian, rather than monolithic, tectonic strategy. Millwork, hearths, glazing, floor, steel columns, wood shear fins, concrete wall, and sleeve-like metal roof: each of the building’s constituent elements is expressed separately. In this sense the project foreshadows a growing interest in articulating building systems that has carried through to our more recent, large-scale public projects. Both landscape and tectonic strategies support a passive solar approach, incorporating south-facing glazing in conjunction with concrete flooring fitted with a hydronic heating system. Hardwood flooring is peeled back in order to express this environmental agenda.