Mecox

A coastal lagoon’s narrow shape and adjacent topography funnel storm surge and wave action onto a scenic but low-lying site. The design for a home here must respond to these conditions and engage the landscape in a resilient way, while remaining functional and enjoyable to its inhabitants. In response, the design eliminates the traditional barriers between house and landscape, instead interweaving layers of the built and natural environments horizontally and vertically.

FEMA requirements to raise new structures in this zone by a full story above grade, coupled with local zoning relief for this requirement, present a unique opportunity to build an elevated two story house with ocean views. It also prompts a reconfiguration of the domestic paradigm: the house is lifted, its program inverted, and its mass perforated. This in turn allows the yard and its plantings to slide underneath and reach through the stories above. The topmost story encompasses all rooms except support spaces and sits on small utilitarian pedestals, a configuration that affords views underneath to the creek beyond and maintains a small, permeable footprint within the floodplain. Gardens, decks, lawns, and swimming pool slip into the double height void created under the house, reclaiming outdoor recreation area given to an expanse of creekside native species revegetation. Four large courtyards puncture the upper level, illuminating the terrain below and permitting sea breezes to convect underneath and through the interior. A series of large evergreen trees rise through the courtyards, their canopies commingling with the main living rooms upstairs and rejoining them with the landscape. In concert, areas of the earth around the house are raised for drainage structures and planted with tall grasses, visually connecting house and ground.

Materials and their articulation complement this arrangement. Impervious metal panels clad the lower level flow-through walls to safeguard against both minor flooding and severe wave action. Expanded metal mesh trellises suspended in front of those walls support a network of vines that reach upward, covering the lower pedestals in greenery and anchoring them into the natural surroundings. A network of metal stairs, bridges, and deck platforms rendered in matching mesh provide graceful transitions and moments of repose between the ground and the upper living spaces. Additionally, a finely detailed continuous wood screen envelops this upper level, lending it a lightness and buoyancy that belies its mass and height.

Where so often topography, land planning, and building regulations form impediments to good design, here they intersect to support a living experience totally unexpected. A principal story elevated far above grade and a landscape cultivated under, through, and onto the house combine with thoughtful execution to enhance the property’s usefulness and the lives of its residents, all the while tending to the environment’s needs.