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A family of 4 spent two years sailing around the world in a 48’ sailboat. When they built their home, they decided it should be solar powered, environmentally sensitive, and respond to the many lessons they learned while at sea. They chose an irregular site in a typical 50’s residential neighborhood where the frontage street parallels the site and then turns abruptly, such that the house terminates the street axis. The architects sought to celebrate this unique street condition with a tower terminating the street. In addition, a walking path sits immediately in front and adjacent to the site. The Solar House reinforced this path while rendering privacy to the house with strategically placed windows and a stretched flat façade to imply movement.

Several details of the home are representative of specific features of the owner’s previous house boat. The tower is designed with a hatch and ship’s ladder that enables stack-effect cooling while referring back to the family’s sea-bound passion and providing opportunities to keep their eyes on the horizon. Large windows capture surrounding views while allowing generous amounts of natural light – a call back to the wrap around windows of their boat. Additionally, the house is clad in dark-grey stucco on the lower volume and white stucco on the upper volume, echoing their boat’s previous colors.

Following the procession, a well-fenestrated, stucco wall, in conjunction with a short roof, provides a horizontal proportion that grounds the structure. Behind the front façade is a hidden primary entrance highlighting a main corridor that combines an open living room, dining room, and kitchen. The main level is comfortably functional, linking a lounge, mudroom, and garage. The patio facing rooms look to the swimming pool through large windows that terminate into the floor plane for a continuous marriage of interior and exterior spaces. Finally, the master suite is a looping corridor looking over the swimming pool as a sequence of bedroom, closet, and sun-drenched bathroom.

Sustainability was important to the owners who were committed to lessening their dependency on fossil fuels. Solar House is equipped with 41 solar panels that free the home from the coal-powered municipal grid and supply enough power for the whole house and 2 electric vehicles. Additionally, the house incorporates ground sourced geothermal heat pumps where eight wells use the consistent 57 degree temperature of the earth to heat and cool the house. The house uses natural stack ventilation, passive solar heating, and a well-insulated envelope to help regulate the interior temperatures to reduce the carbon footprint as much as possible. The owners of the Solar House wanted their environmentally sensitive home choices to extend to their lawn grass choice. They were drawn to a mixture of native prairie grasses for their lawn for its beauty, encouragement of animal biodiversity, consumption of less water, and drought tolerance.

At every turn, simple cost-effective solutions were sought to conserve energy while creating a house that is both beautiful and sustainable, economical and soulful.

Uniting the turbulent river oxbow to the west and the excavated lake to the east, Embankment strikes an axis between the natural and man-made worlds. This link acts as an according force, around which program, circulation, and views are bound.

Guests experience a choreographed procession along the axis as the ascend Embankment’s mounded perch, rising above the adjoining fields as they’re teased with vignetted views of the surrounding landscape. As they advance through the heavy steel entry door, they are rewarded with a carefully framed view of the rugged landscape to the west: extending through the glass wall at the opposite end of the living room, the axis recedes into the landscape as it descends the mound through cleft rows of prairie grasses, the surface itself transitioning from hard, manufactured materials to soft wood, then tapering off into only a narrow suggestion of a path through matted grass as it finally reaches the bank of the river. The materials of the house itself reflect this same connection, marrying natural and man-made wherever possible. Weathered steel, raw concrete, and earthly wood proliferate throughout the project, serving as a constant reminder of the reciprocity between the two worlds.

The FairAcres neighborhood dates back to 1906, when wealthy residents seeking quiet privacy and affable community settled on a trolley line stemming from central Omaha. The original house, built in 1952, while functional, lacked the eminent charm of its neighbors, juxtaposed to whom its dated siding and failing stucco cladding appeared passé, if not entirely antiquated. The project sought to remedy that disparity, presenting a graceful allusion to its timeless counterparts while composing a more contemporary interior.

A deliberate endeavor to adapt the character of its enduring environment to the needs of the twenty-first century, the residence needed to embody the spirit of its neighbors without straying into facile cliché. The most successful precedents embraced new structural opportunities opened by rapid industrialization, but rejected the role manufacture of decorative arts in favor of hand craftsmanship. Ornament was rarely applied, rather decorative features served functional and structural purposes, and composition relied on proportion and cohesiveness instead of adornment in garnish.

Building on this framework, the house projects a robust but reserved demeanor, eschewing symmetry for a more nuanced balance and focused use of architectural elements. Windows were coordinated to work with the organization of internal spaces rather than conforming to external regimentation; the steel catwalk and eyebrow entry overhang contribute visual stability while serving performative roles; exposed interior beams serve as a tectonic expression of the residence’s framework. In this way, the project manages to craft a fitting, debonair exterior that aptly hints at contemporary, tailored spaces inside. The rooms avoid imitating historic interiors, but incarnate the ideas exemplified by the house’s owners. Spatial articulations, like the jaunty limestone mantel, which floats boldly over the open master fireplace, or the custom furniture, clinging tightly to the profile of the basement areas to form both visual boundaries and pliable function, unite the objectives of the precedent era with the demands of present-day living and state-of-the-art construction.