Sharon, Connecticut, USA
Tucked into the rolling countryside of Sharon, Connecticut, the Four Points House by IN STUDIO is a poetic response to place—where architecture and landscape coalesce in quiet harmony.
Designed around the cardinal views that define the site—mountain, meadow, farm, and forest—this award-winning residence embraces its natural context through both form and material.
Recognizing its excellence in design and its thoughtful integration with the surrounding landscape, the Four Points House has been awarded a 2024 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The client’s goals for the project were to create a contemporary house that celebrated the site’s beauty and served as a home for two individuals while accommodating extended family as guests.
The site’s four cardinal views shaped the home’s form and orientation.
This orientation also considered the sun’s position, protecting against southern exposure while strategically opening up light and views in other directions.
With its U-shaped plan, the house forms three courtyard walls, with the forest’s tree line forming the fourth.
From inside, the architecture frames moments of the site’s views, such as the short passageway into the kitchen offering a glimpse of the mountains before revealing the entire vista.
Right-sizing the house for the couple was key in the home’s design. Four Points House is divided into three main sections, each occupying its own volume: the primary suite, the living areas, and the guest suite.
The primary suite occupies the southern volume, with a wing of social, entertaining, and dining spaces stretching between it and the northern guest suite.
The four-bedroom guest suite is physically separated, acting as a standalone building with its own entrance.
Connected to the primary residence by the roof (forming the south wall of the courtyard), it allows for varied scales of inhabitation and energy use, enabling the couple to open the suite for guests or close it off when not in use.
The project fundamentally embraces sustainability by reducing both operational and embodied carbon and preserving the natural ecosystem.
The primary materials used are wood and locally sourced stone.
The structural system uses responsibly sourced FSC-certified mass timber, a carbon-negative material.
The exteriors are clad in charred timber using the Shou Sugi Ban process, which protects it against fire, resulting in a rich black color and scaly texture and eliminating the need for chemical treatments or stains.
Natural lighting was a driving principle of the design: the long wing that arrays the main living, dining, and entertaining areas is enclosed in full-height glass, so the most used part of the home is daylit the entire time the sun is up.
The rooftop is solar-ready, anticipating that the house will shift to that power source in the near future.
The design also preserves 90% of the site area as unbuilt and strengthens the natural ecosystem by establishing a meadow rather than creating a lawn.
Project: Four Points House
Architects: IN STUDIO
Lead Architect: Martin Finio
General Contractor: Prutting and Company
Client: Private
Photographers: David Mitchell
