Every Design begins with a mutual dialogue between client and designer. Only thorough this intimate collaboration can an ethic defining the home owner’s personal sense of space, structure, pattern, color and texture unfurl. Often, the challenges presented by the client are defined by undesirable or indistinct site conditions. Creating a tapestry from these collective challenges and elements define the designer’s role and discipline.
Here, our client outlined a seemingly indistinct location for a low key, personal entertaining space. Although this space in particular offered few obvious features to work with, the natural woodland vernacular of the property and the view to the Hudson River were features that helped ground its final composition. The final spa elevation and location take advantage of subtle grade changes by incorporating wall extensions that reach out and gather up the greater landscape. This characteristic of the design helps to tether a relatively small scale space into the larger scale natural framework.
A pergola was incorporated into this space to offer mid-summer shade, but also, to create a sense of intimacy through a constructed semi-closed ceiling. In addition, the pergola is a vertical gesture – in material and orientation – to the three White Oak trees that overhang this space; the pergola helps, in this regard, to scale the White Oak trees.
