RESIDENTIAL: Osprey, Florida
The Main House, the largest of three structures on a family coastal compound, is a U-shaped courtyard structure elevated on piles to meet FEMA requirements. The central garden space, "the largest room in the house", is located where 117 non-native, invasive Australian pines once grew. The courtyard concept enables each of the primary rooms to share a common foreground landscape, and at the same time focus on the Gulf as the extended site. To the east, a mature oak hammock gives the property a sense of age and permanency. The design organizes a large program into a sequence of spaces around the courtyard that are detailed and scaled to impart a relaxed setting to the family retreat. The owner requested a design that would age gracefully and develop an attractive patina. To this end, copper, stone, and wood were selected to establish an organic material palette, expressing a simultaneous sense of permanence and temporality. On this property, each of the coastal ecosystems are distinguishable—gulf, beach, dune, garden, house, oak hammock, mangrove, and inter-coastal bay. Throughout the long, thin core of the home, large glass doors pocket into wall cavities revealing these environments from Gulf to bay.
