Lakewood Rustic, yet Contemporary House located in the northeastern United States, designed by Centerbrook Architects and Planners.
This rustic house for a couple with three grown children and a large extended family is nestled in a northeast forest with lake views. Connected shed roofs aim at the water and the sun, providing deep overhangs to shade porches with tall columns that support a solar screen of indigenous logs. These rhythmically placed natural shades invite the sun’s warming winter rays, but keep the house cool in summer. The first floor flows seamlessly into the outdoors and onto a sitting porch through folding glass walls that open from side to side, merging interior and exterior into one great living space.
Lakewood House was published in New England Homes in 2011, the Italian Architecture Magazine Casa Naturale, and received a Design Award from AIA Connecticut. It is included in two recent books on architecture: “Twenty-First Century Homes” (Images Publishing) and “Green Architecture Now, Volume II” (Taschen Books).
Inside, the main house is united by an arcing two-story hall that doubles as a grand entry. Lined with walls made from local stones at the first floor, it has a catwalk balcony above leading to bedrooms and a studio. The hall serves as the main street for the house, connecting the garage and service rooms in the west with the kitchen and finally the living room at the east.
The house collects the sun’s heat through the full height windows behind the porches and stores it in the masses of masonry walls and the chimney. Full-depth icynene insulation and tight wood-framed windows further minimize energy needs.
A closed-loop geothermal system and a super-efficient Russian wood stove heat the house. Hydronic radiant heat in the principal living areas is particularly effective in the high spaces, putting the heat at the living level where it is sensed, thus lowering the required water temperature and energy use. Multiple zones and the house’s programmable thermostats also minimize energy.
Photography © Peter Aaron/Esto
