Northshore Home magazine highlights the best in architectural design, new construction and renovations, interiors, and landscape design.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1101832
SPRING 2019 49 nshoremag.com/nshorehome/ privacy in the face of a looming condominium build- ing that flanks one side of the property. Measuring 60 feet deep by 25 feet wide, the backyard is actually larger than the 1,400-square-foot house's first floor. That created a design opportunity. Much like Frank The plantings offer privacy for this clamshell courtyard. Lloyd Wright's use of a compression-and-release strategy, whereby some spaces are intentionally made to feel tight in order to make others feel large, Fleis- cher capitalized on the dimensions of the indoor and outdoor living areas. The design, she notes, "gives us a feeling of expanse from inside the house." Views of neighboring trees, a church steeple, and a slice of sky enhance the feeling. Because the backyard was so deep and the drop in elevation so steep, the transition between the house and the yard was critical. To make a comfortable connec- tion, Fleischer used Ipe decking, six-foot granite slab steps with Bryum moss seams, and crushed clam shell to create a terraced descent from the 12-foot-wide floor- to-ceiling glass door into the landscape. "[Addressing] the change in grade was a strategic calculation," Lloyd explains. "Terracing down makes the small space feel much bigger. It also adds interest. If Amy had kept it flat, it would have felt static." The design elements combine for a "treehouse effect," as Fleischer describes it. She notes, too, that the limited materials palette was meant to echo the modern simplicity of the home's interiors.