The Desert House
The Desert House is an efficiently designed home for a desert climate. This version of the Desert House is located in the inter-mountains of Prescott, Arizona. The site’s most powerful feature is the rugged terrain and views of the mountains. The home is situated to minimize earthwork and orient the living areas toward the views. A main feature of the house is the deep cantilevered deck that becomes a bridge between the two private volumes. The large roof overhangs allows the deck to be used year round and creates a large indoor/outdoor living space.
The materiality of the house is simple and sympathetic with the high desert climate, the envelope is made of a colored insulated CMU along with glass sliders, the structure is accomplished with CLT members, and the outdoor deck is wood planks. The house can currently be delivered for approximately $200/SF.
The Desert House uses a conventional home construction system to address a common dilemma for architects and homeowners alike: affordability vs flexibility. While there is a strong demand for affordable new homes in America, the architect is often left out of the process because they are perceived as expensive luxury homeowners cannot afford. Homeowners often forgo the process of tailoring a home to their needs with an architect for options they imagine are cheaper. The result of this is a tremendous loss of opportunity for the profession: currently architect-designed homes account for only 2% of the current home market while 98% come from developer models, prefabricated home products, or local builders. Even worse is the loss of quality living spaces for homeowners who defer to other options. If what architects provide is a uniquely outfitted home for an owner, then there is clearly an unmet need for inexpensive homes that do not sacrifice design customization. The Desert House is an affordable house competing dollar for dollar with other options by offering a flexible housing system that lets homeowners control the design.
The Desert House is a parametric system geared towards affordability. The layout of the house can be adjusted to meet the needs of the owner by controlling view orientations, rooms and amenities, all while having visibility to the overall budget. By controlling these parameters, the homeowner engages the true architecture of the house and in effect, designing their own home. The design system is designed with several geometric rules that allow the form of the house to adapt to user-inputs and site conditions. The formal diagram of the Desert House is simple: two private bedroom volumes separated by a transparent living/dining space, all of which are surrounded by an open deck. The parametric system allows the user to control this basic diagram, adjusting the relative size of volumes as well as their orientation toward views.
The fundamental ambition of this house is to create a design system that lets the homeowner make the decisions. This addresses the need for customization while keeping costs low and it lets architects keep their place at the table. There is a growing demand for new homes in America but unfortunately the idea of home ownership is increasingly out of reach. This Desert House project marks a turning point for our practice by addressing this problem and uses our experience in architecture and technology to enable attainability and affordability in home design.
