Fayetteville Arkansas | 2018 | House

Boxy Bridge is a two-story house built on a small urban lot in downtown Fayetteville. Adjacent to a 1950’s era fire station, the house is situated in a tightly woven eclectic mix of residential and commercial buildings each with their own unique design language. The project was designed for a newly retired couple, who desired a house where they could age-in-place.

The architecture is conceived as an ensemble of carved volumes derived from the nested character of the site’s diverse urban context. In plan the house closes its envelope entirely to the adjacent fire station on its northern and western edges but opens in an exaggerated way to the street and the courtyard garden space on the south and east. In section, the house’s garden wall provides private living space at the first level where the surrounding context is most chaotic, while the second level and roof garden provide serene and expansive views of the Boston Mountains to the South. The effect is an architecture that at once offers a private refuge with both intimate and expansive connections to its site.

Photography by Aaron Kimberlin