A Japanese tea house on a California hillside.
The site sits high on a hillside above Santa Barbara, with the slope behind it and the ocean laid out in front. The programme is small: a living room, a kitchen, two bedrooms, a bath, and the ground between them.
We work on it with RT Maison, our California partners. The scope covers the whole thing: the design, the drawing set that gets it built, and the 3D model the client walks through before anyone breaks ground.
We built the choice, then let the client stand in it.
The outer skin was taken three ways: pale render under a standing-seam roof, dark timber with deep eaves, lime plaster against a tiled roof. Each option was modelled and rendered in full, so the decision was made on the house rather than on a sample board.
The client went for the third: carbonized wood for the siding, and the wide opening that comes with it.
One wall slides away and the room ends at the ocean.
The ocean-facing wall opens almost entirely. Timber-framed sliding glazing runs the length of the living room, so the tatami floor, the low table and the water sit in one continuous space. A deep eave keeps the afternoon sun off the mats.
Inside, exposed rafters run to a ridge at 7'-7", paper lanterns hang over the low table, and the fireplace holds the closed end of the room. The kitchen turns its display shelves toward the view.
The set that makes it buildable.
The concept set carries the site plan, floor plan and living elevations, with the interior details behind them. Room sizes are fixed, the living area at 27'5" by 12'5". Every opening is dimensioned and the rafter line is held at 7'-7" above the floor.
The site plan places the rest of it: the stepping stones through the gravel, the planting, and the sunken fire pit on the terrace below the house.
A model you can stand inside.
The house is built once as a 3D model and kept current with every change. The renders come straight out of it, which is how the kitchen, the bedroom and the bath were settled: cabinet by cabinet, at full size.
We also build a VR version. The client walks the room at scale, and switches between the 360 of the structure that stands there today and the 360 of the one being drawn, from the same spot on the floor.
Carbonized wood, river stone, washed concrete.
The siding is charred timber, dark and grained, against limestone in a river-stone finish. Gravel beds run to the planting, and the terrace is washed concrete with white chips through it.
The palette was assembled to sit quietly under the hill, and to weather without much asking.
Form follows human, above the Santa Barbara coast.
The design is set and priced across the three options, with the drawings and the model moving together toward a build. What it comes down to is one room, one wall that opens, and someone sitting on the mats at the end of the day with the sea in front of them.