2Square House (Farah Residence)

Abstract

THIS MODEST HOUSE IS A SUBURBAN MODEL that demonstrates that a house can be unique, efficient, and affordable in the context of today’s banal, cookie-cutter home market. The built scheme is the last in a series of three design proposals: the first scheme was an extruded shell stepping down the slope of the site; the second, a great butterfly roof set against the hill. The 2Square House (known by the owners as a “house for two squares”) is a carefully crafted “dumb box.” The formal character of the box is enriched by an expressive, yet economic, system of articulation—custom-designed siding of painted and stained exterior plywood sheets, with custom-milled redwood battens and trim. The crisp profiles of the horizontal battens provide scale, as regulating lines and units of measure, and echo the clear presence of the horizon also referenced in many other dimensions of the building and site.