Project Details
- Project Name
- Stack House
- Location
- Minnesota
- Architect
- Lazor Office
- Project Types
- Custom Home
- Size
- 3,550 sq. feet
- Year Completed
- 2016
- Team
- Vercon, Builder, Builder
- Project Status
- Built
2017 Builder's Choice & Custom Home Design Awards
Custom Home Less Than 5,000 Square Feet: Grand
The geometric forms of this house generate places to withdraw, while still giving the homeowners views of a nearby towering oak and of one of Minneapolis’ numerous lakes. Local architect Charlie Lazor of Lazor Office envisioned the custom home as a stack of blocks, and played with direction and opacity on each to produce open and enclosed interior spaces. Pushing and pulling the blocks yielded various protected exterior areas, including a balcony facing the site’s only lake view. Other placements of the stacked spaces are equally strategic: The ground-level block stands parallel to the street and is mostly solid in form. It encompasses the garage, a guest suite/accessory dwelling unit, utilities, and a dog shower. Taking advantage of a sloped lot, the main level sits above the street but is level with the backyard. The elevation change allows for abundant glass on this level without forgoing privacy. Contrasting the hard edges of the rectangular exterior, soft curves finished in white oak grace interior living spaces. Corrugated steel wraps the top floor with a long slot window that slices through the front of the house. The master suite runs the length of this side of the house, and is separated from two secondary bedrooms by a double-height living space. A TV lounge area overlooking the backyard and the public areas also serves as a bridge between the bedroom wings. — S.D.H.
“The integration of this house into its urban site and context really elevates the design. It reflects a particularly attractive solution.” - Juror Christiana Moss
Project Description
From the architects. The Stack House is like a child’s stack of blocks. Solid blocks of private spaces, are stacked in an open, laced pattern to form voids for shared living space. The long and short sides of the blocks are positioned in response to the urban and natural setting of the Stack House. On the mid level, the blocks run perpendicular to the street to open parts of the main living space to the street below and garden behind. On the lower and upper levels, the blocks run parallel to the street to shape privacy for bedrooms, baths and utility spaces. The result of this laced stacking is an open, two-story void of shared space that is simultaneously protected for privacy and immersed in its natural surroundings. To open a view to the lake, visible off the corner of the stack, the mid level block is pushed back from the street, like a move in a Jenga game, thereby making the corner a micro void for solitary contemplation of the water beyond. Contrasting materials of corrugated metal, wood, and glass—express this stacking and shifting on the exterior. Inside, the blocks are carefully carved with curves and surfaced in white oak to shape more intimate spaces to join a family together to share a meal, to recline, read and take in the majestic oak outside, or to play the piano to fill the void with music.
