The Louver House has been designed to satisfy the client’s passion for barns, in Long Island, New York. Designed by architecture firm Leroy Street Studio, the residence was a mix of traditional barn and a modern building to meet the demands of habitability but blend in with the external environment of corn fields and the nearby moody Atlantic coast. The main home is comprised of 7,400 square feet and there is also a woodshop with an additional 1,900 square feet that has adjoining changing rooms for use of the lap pool that lies just beyond.

From the architects: The entrance of the house is approached along a raised boardwalk. The entry sequence draws one through the building’s louvered skin into a two-story foyer overlooking a three story interior garden courtyard. The house’s public spaces are elevated to the second floor to capture the long views. The main space, an open living, dining and kitchen hall, opens to a billiard room below, and to a mezzanine and a ceiling-scape of delicate three-dimensional hybrid wood-and-steel timber frame members and slot skylight above. An immense stone fireplace divides this hall from the outdoor, screened porch beyond. The mezzanine opens outside to a rooftop garden connecting to a study tucked into the rafters.

The foremost determining feature of the project’s architecture is its collaborative use of inside and outside spaces that come together to form a dualistic experience; succeeding in bringing the outside in. To unify the various internal and external spaces, we created a translucent wrapper for the building of louvers and rain screen siding. In all, five outdoor courts and garden spaces are unified under the single roof, giving the structure a double reading of complexity from up close, and simple monolithic harmony from afar. When lit at night, the main house’s light shines from within the spaces between the louvers, allowing a gauzy translucence rarely seen in solid, volumetric structures.

Photos: Paul Warchol