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Placitas Studio
The project is a detached guesthouse, a painting studio-great room with a workshop-garage for a couple who live in their existing residence next door. Sited atop a small hill, the guesthouse is both a place of retreat and an observatory, a place of repose and an instrument for inspiration. The building form is a serene, simple volume, inside and out, from which one can contemplate the vistas of prominent landforms and receive the changing color of the natural light throughout the day.
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Villa Audriana Addition
Sustainable design elements are an integral part of the house. The construction follows timeless, traditional building methods of the Southwest while the form and layout of the spaces are distinctly modern. The new addition (1,600 sq. ft.) is a hybrid rammed earth and structurally insulated panel system (SIPS) using local material and providing highly efficient insulation value. The new addition connects both inside and out to the existing house via an interior breezeway of glass below and a rooftop wood deck above; an intimate courtyard garden interrelates old and new.
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Casa Segura
Casa Segura-Sandoval is located adjacent to the Villa Audriana on lands that once were a vineyard in the North Valley. The design of the house draws from the rural setting, the climate and topography to create a home that uses transitional spaces to connect inside with outside. The second story balconies enhance the views to the open agricultural fields, surrounding Sandia Mountains and extinct volcanoes to the west. Patios and decks are used to make spaces that both buffer the house from unwanted heat in summer yet create outdoor areas for enjoyment in good weather.
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Villa Audriana
The original home (2,200 s.f.) is situated on a rural quarter-acre site in the historic Los Griegos neighborhood. The compact volume of the structure helps conserve the land for growing wine grapes, a vegetable garden and fruit trees; all watered by an acequia (irrigation ditch) from the Rio Grande river. The longer dimension of the original house is placed on the east-west axis for solar access and control. Large glass doors and windows on the southern façade allow passive solar heating in winter, while an overhang and the balcony above give shading in summer.