Situated on a two-acre lot a short distance through cherry orchards to Suttons Bay, the Bryant Home sits lightly on a rolling grassland. One-story construction and gentle exterior slopes will allow the home to be accessible as the clients age. 

Service and utility spaces are tucked to the north, while a tiered façade on the south allows for all living spaces to have a morning to evening sunlit corner window pointing to the nearly 300 feet of never-to-be developed property.

Viewed from East Shaker Trail, the stone-clad form peels up slightly from the land to reveal inviting wood and glass recesses, glimmering with sunshine from southern windows beyond.

The roof then drops back towards the ground, shedding water to colorful “rain pass-through gardens” through scuppers and rain funnels, creating water features out of the elements.

Rotating the roof 45 degrees to the walls creates proper orientation for solar panels, while still allowing for standard orthogonal construction of wall, roof, and floor framing. 

The roof slope is expressed in the living spaces as a white plane extending out from ceiling to roof overhang, being exquisite in form without necessitating the use of finish-grade carpentry. 

At the cross-axial recesses and tiered façade, window walls meet the sloped ceiling and are angled at their apexes, offering an enthralling experience of compression and expansion while highlighting the extension of the overhead plane to the outdoors. An operable partition allows the main space to flex between intimate or lively uses.

The landscape design completes the architecture, locking into one another to create extroverted and introverted opportunities to interact with nature. 

A lightly graded topography ensures that the home, patio, and back lawn are accessible on the highest ground; water has a natural path to flow from the six low points of the roof to depressed rain gardens and away from the foundation; and the nature paths have a gentle slope for ease of travel.

Eco-friendly materials, built-in indoor planters, ample southern-facing roof for solar power, naturalistic native planting to promote biodiversity, and radiant heat will all allow the clients to interact gently but impactfully with the land for years to come.