NEW HOUSE
This suburban villa, designed for a family with three small children, replaces a ranch-style house in a terminally ranch-style neighborhood. It inverts the low-slung ranch paradigm, flipping the roof into gull wings that open the interior spaces to views and the sky. the semi-public front yard, designed to be an open space for neighborhood children, abuts the family room. The other lower level spaces open to the back of the lot to take advantage of western light and create privacy. Upstairs bedrooms, placed at each end of the building, are separated by the two-story living room volume and bridged by the clerestory hallway that runs down the center of the building. Passive cooling is provided by a large ash tree, as well as by allowing the prevailing western breeze to enter low along the back and exit through the center clerestory.