On the Boards: Element House by MOS

Construction recently began on the Element House by MOS (one of RECORD's 2008 Design Vanguard firms). Eighty miles from Santa Fe, New Mexico, the house will sit next to artist Charles Ross's earthwork sculpture and observatory Star Axis, which he began in 1976 and is likely to finish in 2013.

Made of aluminum shingles and structural insulated panels, with solar chimneys and sliding glass windows and doors, the 1,500-square-foot aggregated guest house is inspired by the Fibonacci sequence, say the architects. It also appears to have something of the counterculture spirit of all those late '60s and early '70s experimental dwellings that popped up in fields and deserts across the States.

The client is the Colorado-based Museum of Outdoor Arts, which helps support Star Axis. Element House will likely be complete next summer and open for guests, researchers, and academics in 2013. The idea is for it to function somewhat like the guest house associated with Walter de Maria's The Lightning Field, also in New Mexico.

(With consulting from Atelier Ten.)