Natural Selection
Author:Abigail StoneOur California Home + Design Award 2016 for Residential Efficient Design, House 7 by Cheng Design, embraces nature’s power to create and destroy
Rainwater caught by the dramatic butterfly roof is fed to a rusted plate steel corner drain.
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design
The walls are clad in reclaimed redwood from trees fells more than a century ago. Insulated concrete walls minimize heating and cooling needs
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design
The house was conceived of as a small village, where dwellings of multiple size and scale support and harmonize with one another
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design
Cheng’s book, Concrete At Home, first led the client to contact him about creating her countertops, but after she discovered their sensibilities were perfectly aligned, she brought the designer on for the entire project.
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design
“All of these things converge and work together,” Cheng explains. “You’re always walking under, through or next to various elements that connect with the weather or time or erosion.”
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design
The decision to vault the roof, with hydroponic panels on the south facing side and operable skylights on the other, also brought in light and air, which lessened the need for air conditioning.
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design
“The roof was a major factor,” he says, explaining how the butterfly design unfolded. “Placing the solar panels at a certain angle is critical.”
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design
Though Cheng was blessed with an ideal site with full southern exposure that would have easily lent itself to a shed roof, he was after something more poetic.
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design
“It would look like that whether or not those were things that made it an environmentally good house,” say Fu-Tung Cheng of Cheng Design, describing how he balanced green concerns with aesthetics in this Los Altos Hills home.
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design
A wall is designed to erode, revealing sculptural objects hidden within. Water dances down rain chains, seeps through an entry wall and pours over a corner drain, creating a sound that is as much a part of the building’s structure as the century-old reclaimed redwood, the thick insulated concrete walls or the photovoltaic roof panels.
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design
In Cheng House 7, luxury and efficiency meld together, creating a space where nature’s power is not only harnessed, but embraced.
Photographer: courtesy of Cheng Design