C House is a Hybrid Construction designed as a mountain retreat in Pine Cove, CA. Perched at 6100 feet on the first ridge of the San Bernadino mountains, the views stretch across the valley to the Coastal Range hundreds of miles away.
The site is a challenge: well treed, with a 200' Jeffrey Pine as well as a mixture of evergreens, oaks and manzanita, there are two main outcroppings of rock that both call to be addressed by the siting of the house. This is compounded by the fact that the driveway approaches from the back of the ridge and gives no warning of the coming panorama.
The response is to create an approach, enclosed by a "sky fence" -- an overhead fence or screen that curves gently through the trees -- to encourage focus on the small scale landscape that is both overhead and beneath the visitor's feet. After walking up through the plants and trees the entrance into the main house is from the back, past a group of boulders enclosed within the house and then, finally into a glass-walled great room that maximizes the sweeping views.
A small translucent cube, suspended above the parking at the other end of the sky fence, functions as an art studio or guest cabin. Its location near the second outcropping of boulders creates a relationship with them. This, with the long c-shaped curve of the sky fence links both outcrops of rock on the site.
This is one of our Hybrid Construction projects. Read more about Hybrid Construction here.