The client, a retired Army captain, asked us to design an urban loft on a steep, wooded site overlooking the Delaware River in rural Shohola, Pennsylvania.  The house is an escape from New York City and a laboratory for ideas - a place to read and work, pace, and think.  A place where indoors and outdoors blur.

The design is made of two intersecting rectangular volumes. 

The large volume (20’ wide x 60’ long x 18’ high) is an open loft-like space – long, narrow, high.  This wood framed volume is clad with wood siding and has an energy-saving green roof. All living functions are loosely arranged in this large volume.  The floor is a radiantly heated, insulated, concrete slab.  The wood framed walls are made from standard length 2x8 studs packed with insulation.  The interior finishes are plywood and cement board.  There is no gypsum board or paint in the house. 

A small volume (16’ wide x 18’ long x 22’ high) intersects the large two-story rectangle and houses all the “wet” functions - bathrooms, kitchen, mechanical equipment – as well as the second-floor master bedroom loft.  The east end of the loft cantilevers into the open height of the large volume and is clad in utilitarian metal siding - walls as well as roof. 

Project Team

Jerry Caldari
R. Scott Bromley