Blauhaus

Project Details

Project Description

FROM THE MATSUMOTO PRIZE:
The house was designed for a “super rad” couple and their twin boys. The husband/father is from Germany and “Blauhaus” means “Blue House” in German – although nothing in the house is blue! But the name somehow stuck. The structure has a gable-shaped form as a nod to his home back in Germany, but with a modern tendency – hence the flat roof section. It is 20 feet wide and 74 feet long and is flanked by walls on the perimeter. A creek running through the property was a major site constraint, yet the architects chose to accentuate that element by siting the house parallel to the creek. They also created a little “gargoyle” on the roof that shoots water back down to the creek – which the twins find very entertaining. The house includes geothermal heating and cooling.

FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
Blauhaus is a 3,700-square-foot geothermal home located in Winston-Salem, NC. It was designed and built for a family with twin 4 year old boys. With strong family ties to Germany (the husband is German) the house took on a shape and vernacular that both the husband and wife liked and appreciated from their upbringing and past homes in which they lived. It is located in a 1930'-50's area neighborhood and is positioned parallel to an existing creek.

The home features a gabled roof section and a flat roof section that is joined together by an elevated roof deck. The exterior is comprised of cementitious siding and standing seam metal panels with red accents.

One of the main exterior features is a water spout that creates a waterfall during rain that the twin boys can watch from a centrally located window as it shoots out from the spout and leads to the nearby creek.

The interior is open and light filled with the same red accents on the exterior coming into the interior. The floors are bamboo and the large window walls are from Kolbe. Simple yet refined, the home was created to give the young family a modern oasis in an otherwise very busy world.