Designing a home for an architectural photographer was an exercise in simplicity and restraint. We cannot say it any better than the homeowner himself: “Early in my photography career, I took a photo of a house in a wooded area of Maine. The house was a basic shape - as one would draw as a child - just a box with a gabled roof. It fit perfectly in a square crop.

Ever since then I’ve been interested in that form. With the direction for this house, I had no program and came to Side Angle Side with just that fundamental shape. By the end of the process I had a wife and a dog and the program evolved, but the shape stayed the same. During the design and building phase, I was also photographing for a book on architecture and interiors of Marfa.

While we didn’t set out to make a Marfa house in Austin, it certainly inspired design decisions in terms of materiality - modest and minimal, while also maintaining a sense of warmth.” With the client as our editor, we adhered to that vision of simplicity.

The result is a monolithic dark volume with carefully placed punched openings. A concrete site wall pierces the volume, defining the approach and entry experience.