Otter Cove

Carmel, USA

Single Houses

Architects: Piechota Architecture

Location: Carmel, USA
Year: 2008

On a rocky, craggy edge of the California coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Otter Cove rises up as an outcropping of the landscape that surrounds it, its two wings stretching out into the slightly uneven terrain that then drops dramatically into the ocean below. On first glance, it’s the stone walls that give form to both the inside and outside of the house which create this effect of natural emergence from the site.

This material affinity is just one element of a design that relaxes into its setting. The home’s spaces, arranged into two wings that extend out from a central entrance foyer, weave into the natural topography of the landscape, while a set of gently curving roofs peel apart from each other and appear to dissolve the house’s overall volume into the horizon. Floor-to-ceiling glazing allows views of the ocean and the mountains beyond to penetrate the entire house and, in the bedroom, creates a panoramic experience of the Pacific’s deep blue. Gently curving walls, clad in slender planks of golden pine, guide the eye through the volumes and out through the glass. As the walls, roofs, and ceilings slip past and peel away from each other, they reflect the changing nature of the rising and falling tide.