© Peter VonDelinde
- Architects: Lazor / Office
- Location: Madison, United States
- Lead Architect: Charlie Lazor
- Area: 2655.0 ft2
- Project Year: 2009
- Photographs: Peter VonDelinde
© Peter VonDelinde
Text description provided by the architects. It can be challenging enough to find the right frame for a painting. But what if you want to frame an ever-changing natural environment—and you also want to live inside the frame?
© Peter VonDelinde
The spaces of the Thumb House actively engage the surrounding landscape. Where the warm wood façade of the house recedes within a zinc wrapper, a wide outdoor room opens toward the lake, framing a panoramic view of water and sky. White-stained wood lines the inside of the outdoor room, transitioning smoothly into the white interior of the house at a glass wall.
© Peter VonDelinde
© Peter VonDelinde
The logic of cutting into walls to reveal the tree canopy extends throughout the interior living spaces of the two-bedroom house while preserving privacy. Beneath high, continuous landscape windows, low walls define dining and lounge zones with a varied material palette—including tile, soapstone, birch, and walnut.A thumb-like extension disrupts the rectangular geometry of the house to form a secluded study, where a window dips down over the desk to present an intimate view through a field of tree trunks to the lake. Wood shutters can be opened to bring in some air, expanding the rooms in spring and summer.
© Peter VonDelinde
Floor Plan
© Peter VonDelinde