january-2012

for Kundig’s avowed obsession with gadgetry
and technology, yet it is still deferential to its
prominent plot overlooking the Strait of Juan
de Fuca. Shadowboxx features a facade of
shuttered windows and sliding doors,
allowing the living areas to be totally open to
the outside world. Th row in the tilting roof of
the bathhouse, a technical tour-de-force that
turns alfresco bathing into an architectural
performance, and you have a house that
revels in the paradox of technology being
used to enhance its relationship with nature.
Th e Shadowboxx also contains a key
piece of Kundig subversion, a direct riff from
the outsider artists and hot-rodders he so
admired in his youth. Push a button, and a
cheeky sliver of decking pops out to extend
beyond the designated building line – a
means of frustrating a neighbour’s insistence
on strictly following local codes. A similarly
subversive idea underpins the Rolling Huts
in Mazama, Washington, a group of six
Corten steel and wooden wheeled structures
that roam the client’s meadows. Offi cially
classifi ed as recreational vehicles in order to
skirt a prohibition on further development on
the plot, they serve as vacation rentals, guest
beds and extended living space.
Over the past decade, Kundig and his
team have spread out from Washington State
to new environments, building in such
far-fl ung locations as Hawaii, California and
Spain. Th e latter project, in Sitges, was
commissioned by a Norwegian living in Paris
PRIVATDESIGN
who was put on to the fi rm by a South African friend, testament
to the internet’s ability to bring like-minded people together.
Kundig says that his clients come from all walks of life, but there
is a noticeable emphasis on art and artists, with his houses often
serving as a bold backdrop to a lifetime’s collecting.
Despite Olson Kundig’s size, the architect will stay focused on
small projects. ‘I’ll be doing houses for the rest of my life. I meet all
these interesting clients with all these diff erent histories. And then
all these diff erent landscapes around the country and hopefully
around the world,’ says Kundig. Like his architecture, the fi rm’s
approach is pragmatic and low-key. ‘Our offi ce happens the way it
happens,’ he says, ‘we “ski the trees”. You’ve got your skills, your
talents and your equipment, and you don’t know where you’re
going to wind up. You’re just following the space between the trees.
I don’t know where it’s going to go. It’s exciting.’
Forty-Eight
Kundig is an architect
of fi erce invention.
Above left:
Chicken Point Cabin’s
window-wall opens
the entire living space
to the forest and lake.
Above right: the
main living space of
the San Juan Islands’
Shadowboxx (2010)
contains six rolling
platforms that serve
both as sofas and beds.
Above: Washington
State’s Rolling Huts,
(2007) are classed
as RVs to get round
planning restrictions
www.olsonkundigarchitects.com IMAGES©BENJAMINBENSCHNEIDERTIMBIES