Gaisie Residence

Architect: Godfrey Gaisie, Stanley Beaman & Sears Architects Interior Design: Kara Gaisie GC: Bongers Homebuilders Ft²: 2100 We designed our house thinking of our young, growing family. The functional program included a first floor bedroom for long term guests and an open floor plan allowing views from the heart of the house in the kitchen. There’s a sense of movement outside the house looking at the folding planes and accenting bands as they fold and cycle around the house. Metaphoric of the revolving cycle of life we found our family in the middle of. As you enter the house you get that same sense of the movement and inertia with the dropped ceiling and folding countertops, pulling you in to the heart of the house. The reoccurring theme of cycles or spiraling is seen in the light fixtures, especially the chandelier which reflects sunlight into the upper hallway. Transparency is another theme in the house seen with the glass and front facing windows. The south facing windows employ sunscreens to help shade the house from the summer sun while allowing the sun to heat the space in the cooler months. While the form is distinctly modern we tried to massage the scale to fit in with the other houses nearby. The windows are of a residential scale and the home is built on the existing footprint of the previous house which stood in its place. The color scheme blends in with the colors of the homes on both sides of the existing home while adding pops of warm color. The house questions the way people normally think of single family living with its open layout and style. The house also questions the way people think of modern homes, aesthetically, and from the practical perspectives of size and economy. We strived not to have a house that looks and feels static, but the opposite – a house expressive of movement, time, life and inertia.