22 DIGS.NET | 4.22.2022
P R O F I L E | C R A I G S T E E LY
a completely glass walled house, protected from the direct rays of
the sun, yet filled with dappled sunlight," Steely explains. Arriving
at the top of the slope, looking over the top of the oak grove, "You
enter the house onto a sod roof that feels like an open grassy
meadow in the treetops. You climb down a stair into the living
floor which is nestled in the oak canopy. Gray squirrels run along
the branches and wild turkeys roost in the treetops, just 10 feet
away from the kitchen table." Mule deer also roam the land as if
it were never touched. "The expanse of glass," he notes, "feels
permeable and disappears only to leave nature as it always has
been in the grove."
The glass is a sieve for streams of sunlight that flood the space,
lending warmth to the austerity of the open plan interior, which
lacks visible systems and superfluous fittings that would otherwise
cloud the dominate views of the landscape—sacrilege in this
house. Steely's program called for cantilevering the main living
area into the tree canopy while, in a gesture of both utility and
fluidity, concealing bedrooms, bathrooms, service, and storage
behind a long wall of cabinetry. The home's living room, office,
and kitchen, meanwhile, are distinct spaces, but delineated
spatially by having been sunk into the concrete floor, and further
defined by material. "In the sunken office, all surfaces—floor-
ing, desk, cabinetry—are milled from a single slab of Chinese
pistachio," according to the program notes. "The sunken living
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room is filled with 250-square-foot of B&B Italia's Tufty-Time sofa
components. In the kitchen/dining room, a 22-foot-long counter
of white composite quartz continues the kitchen work surface
into the dining table." The sense of one continuous movement
throughout the space is the result of several smart decisions,
such as flush mounted LED strips in the ceiling that indicate living
zones. Outside, when looking up through the trees, one can see
these geometric lines of light that Steely says are "reminiscent of
a Dan Flavin sculpture."
Embodying Steely's brand of honest, undiluted architecture, Pam
and Paul's House is eminently functional and, as a form, filled
with light and flow and feeling—something the architect, who
splits his time between architecture studios in California and
Hawaii, innately understands. The work is at once thoughtful and
adventurous; a project where one not only sees a vision of the
future, but the hand of one of its most prolific and insistent builders.
craigsteely.com
