Ottmers Residence in rural Gillespie County, Texas by Vincent Snyder Architects

Article source: Vincent Snyder Architects

Ottmers House is a 2,200 sq-ft contemporary home located on an ancestral family ranch in the Texas Hill Country, near Fredericksburg. In keeping with ranching tradition, a young couple with two children of modest means expressed their desire to construct their own home. The design started from the reuse of a foundation slab located adjacent to an existing vernacular structure. Following ranching tradition, work on the home is envisioned as a continuous process based on resource availability rather than a finalized object. For this reason, standardized wood frame construction was interwoven within a series of heavier timber members to facilitate ease of client labor and modification.

Night View (Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects)

• Architect: Vincent Snyder Architects
• Name of Project: Ottmers Residence
• Location: In rural Gillespie County (outside of Fredericksburg, Texas)
• Project Team: Vincent Snyder, Jon Geib, Aaron Taylor
• Contractor: Jeffrey Ottmers
• Project Year: 2011
• Project Area: 2200 sq-ft
• Photographs: Vincent Snyder Architects

Overlooking a pond to the south, a reflective shield of galvanized corrugated metal protects the primary structure and conditioned spaces while creating interstitial zones of outdoor space. Cutouts and openings in the reflective shield are strategically placed to frame views to the countryside, pond, and vehicular approach. Through the orientation and form of the reflective shield, the building employs basic principles of passive sustainable design to take advantage of natural daylight and ventilation while controlling solar heat gain.

Exterior View (Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects)

The primary use of reflective sheet metal, stucco, exposed wood and natural stones found on the site, as well as the shed-like form of the protective enclosure acknowledge the unique material and vernacular precedents of the Hill Country region in a contemporary design.

Side View (Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects)

Front View (Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects)

Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects

Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects

Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects

Exterior View (Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects)

Interior View (Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects)

Exterior View (Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects)

Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects

Exterior View (Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects)

Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects

Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects

Model (Images Courtesy Vincent Snyder Architects)

Tags: rural Gillespie County, Texas

Category: Residential

This entry was posted on Friday, August 19th, 2011 at 5:19 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.