Magnificent home rises from the ashes
Skyline House uses contrasts to create one-of-a-kind space in California’s Oakland Hills
In the wake of devastation left by the 1991 firestorm that hit California’s Oakland Hills, a stunning home — called Skyline House — now sits atop the East Bay mountain range.
The inferno killed 25 people and injured 150 others in a single weekend. It also destroyed more than 3,000 homes. The location overlooks the city of Oakland and has an unobstructed view toward the southwest end of East Bay. New owners who recently bought the property hired California architects, Terry & Terry, to create a home to capture both the spectacular vista and also maximize the garden area.
The result, completed last year after 18 months, is known as Skyline House, a 2,700-square-foot home. The upper floor contains the living, dining and kitchen areas and the master bedroom.
The main living area connects the deck space with its incredible view and the kitchen that opens out to the garden and another deck. The ground floor has a media/projection room, a bedroom, bathroom and office area.
A variety of materials come together in the home, including cedar for ceilings; tropical hardwood ipe for the trellis, decking and wall rain screen; steel in structural supports, cantilevers and openings, as well as for panelling at the rear of the house; and black basalt stone for the wall and outdoor paving and quartz for countertops and wraparound lower floor wet-bar.
Alex Terry, of Terry & Terry Archi- tecture, in Berkeley, Calif., answers a few questions about Skyline House: What was your inspiration for this project? Using the main living space as a connector between the two outdoor areas became a critical part of the project. The idea of channelling, or framing, the views from the west side of the property into the house and through to the garden area on the east side was accomplished by creating the main space as a large, wooden tube. The dining area is extended at the rear with a deck where you have an unobstructed view of the bay area. At the front, the kitchen and entry areas are extended to form a protected outdoor space as an extension of the garden into the house.
The two outdoor areas contrast with each other: one is open, expan- sive, very sunny and hot. The other is sheltered, secluded, cooler and shaded by the trees. What were the challenges in the design and construction? The main challenge was the steepness of the lot. The only level outdoor area was at the front of the house, traditionally not very private. The lower floor digs into the hill side on the upslope, but still retains a high deck on the downslope side. It is a more private floor, with the client’s office space and a more protected, less open media room. Tell us about the design of the ceiling? The form of the ceiling was derived from the function of the air flow and ventilation. It is fluid, like the coastal fog. Once the cooler air is captured and funnelled inward, the rise of the ceiling increases the volume, thereby slowing the laminar air flow and keeping the interior from feeling too drafty. The San Francisco Bay has a unique micro-climate — the fog is omnipresent . . . On hot days, the fog can start to roll inland in the late afternoon to cool us off in the evening. Are there sustainable features? The insulation in the roof is maximized, since the curve of the ceiling created big voids that were easy to fill . . . The concrete has high fly-ash content, replacing part of the cement, the most energy-inefficient component in concrete. The larger framing members are engineered wood, such as I-joists, which provide more structural load-bearing value with less wood waste.