The Urban Homestead is located in central Austin but offers a private retreat for a couple with adult children and a growing family. They entertain often and need the house to feel as comfortable with 50 occupants as it does with two.

Unlike its street facing neighbors, this house is rotated parallel to the site’s natural contours. As a result, views from and through the house are to wooded property corners rather than the street and adjacent homes. This one room deep house is also oriented for optimal day lighting and natural ventilation.

Traditional mouldings are minimally employed to organize lighting and conceal mechanical systems. Reclaimed wood floors provide the new home with an immediate lived in patina. The house is rooted in traditional forms of hearth and home interpreted in a quiet modernism.