Shou Sugi Ban House

Enlarging an existing home that has an already strong and complete architectural character can be challenging. Here, we anchor the existing one-story home with a new two-story independent volume, using it both as punctuation mark and counterpoint to the existing composition.

This project, which also involved extensive remodeling of themodern residence located high above Silicon Valley, was inspired by dominant images and textures from the site: boulders, bark, and leaves. We clad the addition in traditional Japanese Shou Sugi Ban burnt cedar siding both to anchor home with site and to create the visual “weight” necessary to anchor the existing exuberantly-roofed horizontal building . Natural textures also prevail in the cosmetic remodeling of the living spaces.

The original home was a joint venture between Min | Day as Design Architect and Burks Toma Architects as Architect of Record and was substantially completed in 1999. In 2005, Min | Day added the swimming pool and related outdoor spaces. Schwartz and Architecture began work on the addition and substantial remodel of the interior in 2009, completed in 2015.

The original home occupies a prominent hilltop overlooking Silicon Valley and faces into the pristine rolling hills of a nature preserve at the end of the house receiving the new addition. Taking cues from dominant natural elements of the surrounding densely wooded hillside – boulders, bark, and leaves – SaA created a two-story addition with the visual weight needed to anchor the long axis of the extended original house. Against this, we balance steel-framed stair treads and awnings that cantilever from minimal structural supports as if leaves from a slender branch.