Charlottesville architects Allison Ewing and Chris Hays design this home for their family. Designed around two Japanese concepts, ma, or spatial interval between two objects, and hashi, referring to bridge, this house is split in two parts with a bridge spanning over the entry court. The bridge is a place of transition and connectivity, both joining and separating the public and private spaces within the house while expanding the boundaries of the interior to the outdoors and framing a view of the Charlottesville, Virginia landscape.
Environmental strategies of this 2,500 SF house, influence the well-being of the family members (optimized indoor air quality, ample daylight), while others contribute to the health of the environment (roof water filtered in a wetland pond, passive solar design, optimized thermal envelope).