The Muir-Craig House is a prototype for a modest home containing three bedrooms, two baths, a generous study, as well as a double height great room all in 1400 square feet. It is high amenity combined with a modest size and budget.

This modesty extends to its relationship to the village. It is a good neighbour, reinforcing the form, scale and siting of adjacent houses and barns. In most regards it is an invisible architecture. A modest shingled she suggests a court, and creates privacy from the village road, and is a modest homage to tradition.

While the form of the house is traditional, the material palette is modern, utilizing the corrugated metal siding on the exterior of many rural industrial local barns. Due to its ‘outsulation’ strategy the modest platform wood framing is carefully exposed on the interior. Millwork and finish carpentry are made of affordable Baltic birch plywood.

This is a landscape viewing instrument in which every opening is subtly positioned to frame specific landscape features and nearby vernacular precedents. In this way the house is further situated into its physical and cultural context.