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Design New England PUSHING THE ECO ENVELOPE An expansive new Boston-area house blends 20th-century Bauhaus style with 21st-century geothermal technology
Written by Rachel Levitt Welcome to Bauhaus cool, a contemporary interpretation of the early-20th-century design movement committed to unifying art, craft, and technology. Bauhaus influences are everywhere here: in the kitchen shelves hung from steel cables, in the stair risers made of metal fins, in various doors and windows swinging or sliding on beautifully machined hardware. These details combine with the crispness of mass-produced pieces with the patinas of handworked woods and finishes to create a 21st-century take on the most influential modernist movement. One of the homeowners had grown up in a Bauhaus home and loved its aesthetic. She and her husband hired architect Maryann Thompson of Cambridge, Massachusetts, to capture the modern spirit for their new house just outside of Boston. Thompson, deeply respectful of the movement, also recognized how the style could forward her interest in sustainable design. "Every project I do is passive solar," she says. "This is a full-time house, open to the south, so I organized the public rooms to invite in natural light and heat. The north side is what I call the insulating wall that’s where I put the coat closets, the bathroom, and a real band of storage." The main rooms of the 4,500-square-foot house kitchen, dining, and living areas are conveniently arranged on one floor. Slightly sequestered to one side, an east-facing office suite accessible via a glazed bridge maintains a sense of quiet and privacy; a two-story bedroom wing mirrors it to the west. Running like a spine along the main space is a 64-foot-long, 6-foot-wide slate-floored corridor that steps gently down to the east. In the mornings and evenings, this space is filled with sunlight. The rest of the day, the sun plays with the solids and transparencies of the main spaces, casting intricate shadows across the wood floors. "In this house, there are moments of epiphany, a wonder at the world. You turn the corner and discover something unexpected," says Thompson, whose enlightened floor plan was brought to fruition by builder Doug Hanna, of S+H Construction, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The decision to invest in a geothermal system for heating and cooling was a key factor in the project, and one that stemmed from the owners’ desire "to tread more lightly," says Thompson. In winter months, heat from the earth is delivered to each room of the house. To keep the house cool in summer, she created a complex system of cross-ventilation. Every room has operable windows on opposing walls to encourage natural airflow. The architectural design encourages the stack effect: Because hot air rises, cupolas, high windows, and operable clerestory windows create a vacuum that pulls air through the spaces. Says Thompson, "On a hot day, you can really feel the air moving, reducing the need for air-conditioning, which is environmentally expensive." There are also low windows just off the floor, a mere 12-inches high, that the client calls "dog windows" because, when she was little, her parents’ dogs looked out through similar apertures. One of the most dynamic aspects of the design is how spaces slip into each other. A wide sandstone chimney separates the eating and kitchen area from the living room, but the hearth can open to both spaces. A cantilevered shelf wraps around a wall from the long corridor into the 30 by 20-foot living room. Interior clerestory windows abound, bringing light from the main living spaces into deeper rooms. Builder Doug Hanna appreciated the challenges of building a modernist house from the ground up, after extensive experience renovating modern homes. "There are interesting quirks to modern construction, like cedar siding that runs vertically instead of horizontally," he says. "But the real challenge is making sure every bit of plaster is dead-on. There are no moldings and baseboards here. And with materials like steel, which the staircase is made of, there’s a precision required that is quite different than working with wood." The interior design reflects a modern sensibility. "The owners didn’t want the house to look decorated; they wanted it to look like an accumulation of things," says interior designer Jeffrey Katz. "So we incorporated small art pieces into the built-in bookcases and niches, a casual way to display objects. The house is warm and homey, lived-in." Although very private, the owners enjoy entertaining. They wanted a fully functional kitchen but didn’t want it to be a grand showpiece. To keep the kitchen striking yet unobtrusive, Thompson designed it around an interior pantry, easily overlooked by the casual observer. The kitchen’s public face features appliances modestly screened from the open dining area by a wood-sheathed island. But the nuts and bolts are hidden from view, just as the bedroom suite is secluded from the main spaces. Deliberately concealing the personal spaces lends a formality that many contemporary homes lack: What is public is clear and open, what is private is small and quiet. Although the Bauhaus movement originated a century ago, it still holds many lessons for us, not least of which is how to celebrate the machine age and still leave room for mystery.
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