House in the Woods

Clients with Fine Art backgrounds designed their house decades ago. Inspired by Tadeo Ando and the Japanese aesthetic, they embraced a palette of monochrome concrete and natural materials. Over time though, their home needed a revision, a “new vision”. The challenge was to create a new artistic composition for this unique concrete home. Introducing three clean and precise ceramic-tiled forms created a contrasting foil against the aged concrete and the free-form of nature. Shou sugi ban siding further softens the ceramic sharpness. This traditional Japanese blackened-wood finish brings ‘wabi-sabi ‘or, the sense that time is passing. The blackened wood also continues the interior renovations, and here it harmonizes with the gray tone finishes. Upon approach, one of the forms is transparent and makes a new front porch, another marks the entryway, and the third frames a private suite. These three forms, proportionate to the house and to themselves, surprise the visitor like an art installation discovered deep in the woods of Franklin, Tennessee.