This award-winning 8,000 sf house in Belmont, MA is conceived as a series of horizontal planes that terrace along the edge of a south facing hill. Designed to romantically interact with the surrounding landscape, the house allows a stream to pass through it, it lets light enter through clerestory windows breaking down the boxiness of the enclosure, and it extends outdoor living spaces into nature.

The composite steel and wood structure is wrapped in thoughtfully crafted minimalist details and natural materials. The most challenging design aspect was detailing, fitting, attaching and coordinating the 180 custom mahogany windows and doors into the clean/tight design.

Ioana Urma worked on this project at Maryann Thompson Architects developing the formal design of the project including structural integrity and coordination, detailing and construction administration, lighting design, material and product research, and finding subcontractors to do work that the general contractor was unable to do. She worked on this project with Bill Pevear.

The images here belong to M.T.A. Ioana Urma manually produced the ones that aren’t credited to someone else.