NARRATIVE ARCHITECTURE: An Unfolding Home
Building an architectural narrative through salvaged materials embedded with history
We let spaces unfold naturally, much like a beloved book, with characters connected to certain areas and history present at every turn.
Consider Fishcreek Woods, the house we designed in Wilson, Wyoming for a family who wanted a house truly at home in its surrounds, “as though it had been on the property for a century,” says Paul Bertelli.
To build this architectural narrative, we salvaged materials embedded with history, sourcing planks and logs from homestead cabins and sheds, and fieldstone from the region. Thus equipped, we began to tell the story in sections, imagining a residence of interconnected structures: the main house with its living areas, kitchen and bedrooms; the separate guest cabin, a gem tucked into the forest; and the garage with its own bedroom tucked into the gable. Each room becomes a chapter unto itself, of stones hewn by time in the foyer, of timbers etched with age in the living room.
To connect these spaces, we created an alluring dining room, suspended above a babbling brook encased in Nanawall windows that fully retract. At this transcendent table, the story becomes one of convergence—of characters communing, of people listening to place.
Utilizing parts of old buildings to resurrect a new structure served to minimize the scale of the home and also echoed the vernacular of 19th century homestead cabins from the region that were typically added on over time.
We welcome the echoes of material vernacular. May the tale of this home ever accumulate meaning.
