Ephemeral Edge Austerlitz, Dean/Wolf Architects, NY, USA
Ephemeral Edge is a weekend retreat and retirement home located on a 6.3-hectare parcel adjacent to the Beebe Hill State Forest and across from the Harris Conservation Area. Located about three hours north of New York City, the project’s goal was to contrast the pressured sense of time in the city and extend the everyday passage of time often highlighted in the open landscape. In order to do this, the project needed to restore the site, which had been parcelled by a developer who made a clearing on the forested hillside and built a pond. He imagined someone would ideally build an estate house up the slope at the edge of the trees that would look out over the pond and dominate it.
At that time, the torqued banks that were necessary to create the flatness of the pond on the sloping site rendered the expanse of water as a strange object floating in the middle of the forest clearing. In contrast to that original conception of the site, we opted for a different strategy by placing the house at the edge of the pond, and we responded to the manipulated topography by extending the torqued banks into the form of the house. Reed Hilderbrand’s landscape – a concave bank for the house and a convex bank opposite – expanded the edge to the trees and the landscape became whole again. The house floats on five piers at this new heart of the site. The first stands at the edge of the pond where the living room deck reaches over it, while the last is in the pond, floating the master bedroom over the water.
Ephemeral Edge Austerlitz, Dean/Wolf Architects, NY, USA
The siting on the pond is combined with sectional ideas of the programme. Living space opens upwards to lead the interior of the house outside. In the entrance area, where the ceiling flattens and the dining space aligns with the distant panorama, doors open through the house, joining the intimate table to the larger natural landscape. On the far end of the house, the bedroom extends over the water and the roof closes down towards the terrace to create a protected and enclosed relationship with the view. A ruled surface roof gives continuity to the transition between the different sections of the building.
The sweep of the pond’s edge joins the dynamic curvilinear roof and deck, drawing interior and exterior together. The immediate adjacency of the pond reflects southern light onto the polished plaster of the ceiling, undulating light across its surface. The forest edge surrounding the house was formed when the trees were removed to make space for the pond, exposing spindly trunks that were originally in the middle of the forest. This delicate edge inspired the detailing of the structure. Rebar emerges from three foundation walls like trunks and branches lifting the house over the water. The light filters through these elements and animates the structure, using the radial plan to locate skylights that follow the sun. In Ephemeral Edge, sunlight sequentially fills the intimate interiors to create a play of light and shadow that is reminiscent of being in a forest.