Woodland, Minnesota, USA
Overlooking Lake Minnetonka, the Feldmann Residence by David Salmela and his team is a black house that stands in sharp contrast to the neighboring architecture in the semi-wooded suburban area, distinguishing itself through its pure abstraction, unusually narrow profile, and modest size.
Feldmann Residence has been recently been awarded a 2023 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The project is designed for a nuclear physicist, an eye surgeon, and their two young children.
Their previous home had been a significantly larger traditionally-styled home typical of this wealthy suburban area.
The family was disenchanted with the scale of their previous home, the wasted spaces, synthetic building materials, and poor quality of indoor air and daylighting.
The family purchased the 2-acre parcel from a neighbor who subdivided it from his larger lake-shore property.
The design brief for the new home was to prioritize the health of the family and environment.
This was achieved by prioritizing indoor air quality, daylighting, passive heating, and ventilation, and using only nontoxic materials and finishes such as stucco exterior, mineral wool insulation, slate floors, raw basswood walls, and ceilings.
However, despite its deadpan first impression, it is a home rich with surprises that nod to the personalities and professions of its residents.
From a distance, the house appears as a black mass hiding in the shadows of the site’s mature, broad-leaf trees.
Attached to the south elevation is a telescoping volume of horizontal slats. On the north, a monocular volume projecting toward the lake.
On the roof, two asymmetrical gables slope upward from the roof’s parapet walls.
On the ground rest, two giant weathering steel plates rotated 45 degrees to the horizon looking up at cantilevering scuppers.
During rainstorms, water ricochets off the plates, scattering the kinetic energy and stormwater into native grasses that inhabit the site.
The narrow profile of the house is extruded along an east-west axis, creating long expanses of northern and southern exposure.
To the north, large windows look out toward the lake, bringing in cool, even daylight year-round.
To the south, the screen porch doubles as a solar shading device.
The overhanging volume acts like a traditional roof eave by blocking the high-angle summer sun while allowing the low-angle winter sun to passively heat the thermal mass floor throughout the day.
On the ground level, a single stall attached garage and utility spaces occupy the west end of the floorplan, acting as a thermal buffer from the cold winter winds from the northwest as well as the hot afternoon summer sun.
Project: Feldmann Residence
Architects: Salmela Architect
Lead Architect: David Salmela
Design Team: Souliyahn Keobounpheng
Landscape Architect: TVL Studio
General Contractor: McNulty Homes Limited
Client: Private
Photographers: Corey Gaffer
