Modern Architecture
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My Houzz: Modern Mountain House in a Utah Canyon
A Cor-Ten steel exterior and a wall of windows wrap around an architect couple’s new home in a forest setting
Architects John Sparano and Anne Mooney of Sparano + Mooney Architecture set out to build a new home that “was designed to touch lightly on the earth with a compact footprint and almost camouflaged insertion into the natural canyon surroundings,” Mooney says. She describes the modern house as being as “contextual as possible set within its mountain site. The exterior materials blend seamlessly into the landscape and hark back to the Western vernacular buildings of the region.” After a thorough research and design period, the couple worked closely with builder Benchmark Modern to build their family’s home in a neighborhood in Emigration Canyon near downtown Salt Lake City.
The home is in a dry climate that’s prone to fires, so the couple chose noncombustible materials for the exterior, including low-maintenance Cor-Ten weathering steel in a scale-like harlequin pattern. “The materials are very expressive and have aged beautifully over time,” Mooney says. “It is also wonderful that these materials require no maintenance.”
The family uses the land around the home for an organic garden. “We grow vegetables such as tomatoes, carrots, herbs, kale, eggplant and artichokes and enjoy the wild raspberries that abundantly emerge each summer,” Mooney says. “We also are beekeepers and produce delicious raw honey from our hive behind the house each year.”
The family uses the land around the home for an organic garden. “We grow vegetables such as tomatoes, carrots, herbs, kale, eggplant and artichokes and enjoy the wild raspberries that abundantly emerge each summer,” Mooney says. “We also are beekeepers and produce delicious raw honey from our hive behind the house each year.”
The family’s favorite room is the living room, which opens up completely to the canyons and mountain view. The home borders a 200-acre campsite for people with disabilities, so that view will never become obstructed by other homes.
“There is direct access to recreation from the home, eliminating the need for automobile travel to outstanding hiking, walking and biking trails,” Mooney says. “A restaurant is also within walking distance from the house, and there is a public school bus pickup point at the end of the street. The house shares its site with deer, rabbits, coyotes and an occasional moose.”
“There is direct access to recreation from the home, eliminating the need for automobile travel to outstanding hiking, walking and biking trails,” Mooney says. “A restaurant is also within walking distance from the house, and there is a public school bus pickup point at the end of the street. The house shares its site with deer, rabbits, coyotes and an occasional moose.”
“The experience of living in the mountains is captured perfectly with this architecture,” says Mooney, seen here at left, with Sparano on the right. “The design connects one to the canyon visually and then tactilely as the doors slide open and the sounds of the birds and canyon breezes come inside.”
On a warm summer day, the family opens up the sliding glass doors to listen to one of their daughters play the piano while enjoying the view.
On a warm summer day, the family opens up the sliding glass doors to listen to one of their daughters play the piano while enjoying the view.
The couple wanted the main living areas to be large enough for the family to comfortably spend time together. The living room flows into the dining area and then the kitchen.
The fireplace features the same Cor-Ten steel used on the exterior of the house. When the house was first built, the exterior color was similar to what’s seen here, before the outside steel weathered. The family uses magnets to hang pictures and artwork on the fireplace.
The family can enjoy the views of the canyon directly from the living room. “This sensitive integration into the site gives the effect of living in a treehouse and serves to restore and enhance the natural habitat for the birds, coyote and deer that share the site,” Mooney says.
The dining area is used not only for meals but also as a place for the girls to do their homework or for the couple to work on their projects.
The Ikea pendant light is shaped like a bucket with a plastic housing in the center protecting the bulb. The family likes to change out what’s in the bucket depending on the season. It’s filled with feathers now, but they’ve used pine cones in the past. Mooney sees it as a simple and affordable way to add personality to the room.
Polished concrete floors run throughout the space.
The Ikea pendant light is shaped like a bucket with a plastic housing in the center protecting the bulb. The family likes to change out what’s in the bucket depending on the season. It’s filled with feathers now, but they’ve used pine cones in the past. Mooney sees it as a simple and affordable way to add personality to the room.
Polished concrete floors run throughout the space.
The backdrop to the dining area is a library of books on travel and architecture, along with a series of drawings. The couple take inspiration from many of their travels and studies abroad.
“Experiencing architectural masterworks firsthand, while studying as a graduate student abroad in Switzerland and France, continues to be a powerful influence as I develop the design work,” Mooney says. “Through Le Corbusier, I discovered the sculptural potential of architecture and the ability to articulate form with light, materials and spatial quality. John and I have also lived and worked in Italy, and the architecture of Carlo Scarpa and his ability to use materials expressively has been an ongoing inspiration in our work.”
“Experiencing architectural masterworks firsthand, while studying as a graduate student abroad in Switzerland and France, continues to be a powerful influence as I develop the design work,” Mooney says. “Through Le Corbusier, I discovered the sculptural potential of architecture and the ability to articulate form with light, materials and spatial quality. John and I have also lived and worked in Italy, and the architecture of Carlo Scarpa and his ability to use materials expressively has been an ongoing inspiration in our work.”
Sparano and Mooney designed the kitchen to be simple and functional. They used cabinets from Ikea and added chrome pulls, and they chose Carrara marble for the counters. The double-glazed glass doors are 10 feet high and flood the space with natural light.
“The size of the house is perfect; we wanted to design something that had no wasted space or redundant rooms,” Mooney says. “It is scaled nicely for its context, and its relatively small footprint means less energy is used in its operation.”
“The size of the house is perfect; we wanted to design something that had no wasted space or redundant rooms,” Mooney says. “It is scaled nicely for its context, and its relatively small footprint means less energy is used in its operation.”
The bedrooms are intentionally smaller in size. “This house was designed to accommodate changes naturally occurring in domestic life. The scale of the house ensures that with the contraction of family or economic status the house can remain relevant and manageable,” Mooney says.
The couple also designed the house “to adapt to a single-level, fully accessible dwelling with accommodations for an independent caretaker in a lower-level guest suite,” she says. “This separate suite was designed for flexibility and a variety of uses: It could serve well as a play area, nanny’s quarters, a gym, media room or guest room.”
The couple also designed the house “to adapt to a single-level, fully accessible dwelling with accommodations for an independent caretaker in a lower-level guest suite,” she says. “This separate suite was designed for flexibility and a variety of uses: It could serve well as a play area, nanny’s quarters, a gym, media room or guest room.”
The master bedroom and bath flow together seamlessly while still offering some separation thanks to the vanity and closet in the middle of the space.
The house was designed to let in ample amounts of natural light, reducing energy costs. The dual-flush toilet is water-efficient.
The bath and shower area look out onto the canyon. Large curtains block out the summer heat to reduce cooling costs. The floors have radiant heat.
“We find inspiration in the work of Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler and in Frank Lloyd Wright’s residential projects in Los Angeles for their interconnectedness to landscape and site, their modern approach to materials and construction, and their intimacy of scale,” Mooney says.
Builder: Benchmark Modern
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Builder: Benchmark Modern
My Houzz is a series in which we visit and photograph creative, personality-filled homes and the people who inhabit them. Share your home with us and see more projects.
Browse more homes by style:
Apartments | Barn Homes | Colorful Homes | Contemporary Homes | Eclectic Homes | Farmhouses | Floating Homes | Guesthouses | Homes Around the World | Lofts | Midcentury Homes | Modern Homes | Ranch Homes | Small Homes | Townhouses | Traditional Homes | Transitional Homes | Vacation Homes
Who lives here: John Sparano and Anne Mooney of Sparano + Mooney Architecture and their twin daughters
Location: Emigration Canyon, near Salt Lake City
Size: 2,500 square feet (232 square meters); three bedrooms, two bathrooms
Year built: 2009
“As soon as we had the land, it felt like home,” architect and homeowner Anne Mooney says. “As architects we like to spend time on the site during the design process — in different times of the day and night — and experience the different seasons. The house feels dramatically different in the winter when the site is covered with snow and in the summer surrounded by the lushness of the surrounding woods. My favorite time is the fall, when the colors match the house and it feels really embedded into its canyon setting.”
She and husband John Sparano analyzed the site over the course of a year, tracking the summer and winter solstices and studying the environment in each season. “Sustainable design is integral to the project, beginning with the relatively small footprint of the house, which was built at the minimum allowed,” Mooney says.
Thanks to its fire-resistant exterior and compact footprint, the home earned the state’s first LEED-H Silver certification. The points system rates the design and construction of buildings based on their sustainability and adherence to environmentally friendly guidelines.
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