House in the Mountains

Gluck+ has partially buried a house in Colorado to preserve the view and save on energy use.

House in the Mountains
Gluck+
Colorado Rocky Mountains
From the main house, the owners see mostly planted roofs and the white oak rain-screen for the bedrooms
Photo © Steve Mundinger

House in the Mountains
Gluck+
Colorado Rocky Mountains
A terrazzo floor of quartz chips and black mortar unites living and dining areas with the terraces outside.
Photo © Steve Mundinger

House in the Mountains
Gluck+
Colorado Rocky Mountains
Photo © Steve Mundinger

Architects & Firms

Gluck+

Colorado

Houses embedded in the earth are becoming a specialty of Gluck+, the New York architect-led design-build firm formerly known as Peter Gluck and Partners. The reasons are compelling–the grass roofs reduce energy loads and their low profile doesn't impinge on the natural landscape. In the case of a 2,850-square-foot guesthouse in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the clients, for whom Gluck had designed a main house on the site in 2004, wanted a separate structure to be located on property to the south between a creek and an access road. But they didn't want it to interfere with the splendid mountain vista they had from the main house. “So many views are destroyed by plunking buildings on top of the land,” says Gluck.

The architects configured the guesthouse as two rectilinear steel-framed bars that intersect; the primary one contains open living and dining spaces, with a roof gradually rising to the south at a 20-degree angle. The volume seems to collide with and lift over a rectilinear structure running east–west on a diagonal, which contains three bedrooms and the garage. A wall of solar panels on the south elevation of the bedroom wing supplies heat for the house and swimming pool.

The living and dining areas, anchored by a bluestone fireplace wall on the north, open out through glazed doors to the pool on the east and a private, sunken, triangular courtyard on the west. Cor-Ten clads the courtyard's slanted retaining wall, into which an outdoor fireplace is carved. Just beneath the Cor-Ten fascia of the house's roofs, clerestories frame panoramic views of the mountains. “It's become more than a guesthouse,” says Gluck. “It's a communal space for the family.”

Completion Date: February 2012

Gross Square Footage: 2,850 SF

Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains

People

Architecture and Construction:
GLUCK+
423 West 127th Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10027

Personnel in architect's firm who should receive special credit:
Shannon Bambenek
Cory Collman
Peter L. Gluck
Charlie Kaplan
Jason LaPointe
Matthew Lawson
James MacGillivray
Scott Scales
Aaron Kazam
Noam Shoked

Interior designer:
Insight Environmental Design

Engineer(s):
Land Planning:
Joseph Wells Land Planning

Civil Engineer:
Sopris Engineering LLC

Geotechnical Engineer:
HP Geotech

MEP/Sustainability Consultant:
IBC Engineering Services, Inc.

Structural Engineer:
Robert Silman Associates, P.C.

Consultant(s):
Low Voltage | Mechanical Controls:
LEAX Controls

Glazing:
Forst Consulting Co., Inc.

Lighting:
Lux Populi

Photographer(s):
Steve Mundinger
+1 970 923 1055

CAD system, project management, or other software used:
AutoCAD
Rhinoceros
Adobe Creative Suite
Microsoft Project

Products

Structural system:
Steel frame and composite metal deck and
concrete retaining walls

Exterior cladding:
Masonry: Arkansas Bluestone

Metal Panels: 1/8' Corten Steel Panels
from 'Rustic Metal Roofing'

Metal/glass curtain wall: Custom Fixed
Glazed Units with custom steel back-up frame

Wood: Custom Milled Vertical Grain White Oak

Moisture barrier: Vaproshield at walls, Tremco
'Tuff n Dri' at foundation

Other cladding unique to this project:
Minerit HD Fiber Cement Board & Natura Fiber Cement Board From Eastern Architectural Products.

Roofing:
Elastomeric: Hydrotech Membrane Roofing and Intensive Garden Roof Assembly

Glazing:
Glass: Oldcastle PPG Solarban 60

Doors:
Entrances: Arcadia ARC-8250 Glass
Terrace Doors

Sliding doors: Arcadia ULT-5000 Glass Sliding Doors

Hardware:
Locksets: Custom made Stainless steel hardware by Truso Design with Accurate mechanisms

Pulls: Custom stainless steel by Truso Hardware

Interior finishes:
Cabinetwork and custom woodwork:
Custom Cabinetry by Walnut Street Woodworks

Paints and stains: Pittsburgh Paints 'Pure Performance'

Solid surfacing: Corian Counters

Floor and wall tile:
2'x4' custom concrete pavers by Wausau Pavers, custom color mix (interior: floors; exterior: in courtyard and around pool). Nemo Basalti Perla
and Metro White Gloss at bathroom walls

Carpet: Flor 'House Pet', 'Frog'

Lighting:
Interior ambient lighting:
Birchwood Linear Flourescents

Downlights:
US Illumination LED

Task lighting:
Benjamin Hubert, 'Heavy'

Exterior:
Hevilite downlights

Dimming System or other lighting controls:
Lutron Dimming

Plumbing:
Toto Dual Flush
Kohler Shower components
Delacora Tub and Faucet

Energy:
Energy management or building automation
system: Crestron

Photovoltaic system: Heliodyne Solar Hot Water

Suzanne Stephens, a former deputy editor of Architectural Record, has been a writer, editor, and critic in the field of architecture for several decades. She has a Ph.D. in architectural history from Cornell University, and teaches a seminar in the history of architectural criticism in the architecture program of Barnard and Columbia colleges.