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Salmela House + Office
Salmela House + Office
Duluth, MN, United States
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Other Projects by Salmela Architect
Salmela House + Office
Duluth, MN, United States
Firm
Type
YEAR
2007
SIZE
1000 sqft - 3000 sqft
Photography: Paul Crosby, Peter Kerze
Excerpt from:
‘The Invisible Element of Place: The Architecture of David Salmela’ by Thomas Fisher, 2011. Page 199‐201
Few people live over the store anymore. That once‐common integration of our lives with our livelihoods has largely disappeared as we have segregated our existence into separate realms of job and family, a division reflected in how we lay out our cities. Through single‐use zoning, we have kept different functions physically distinct and often quite distant from each other, resulting in people having long commutes and little time for play between the demands of living and working.
David Salmela’s home and office reflects the resistance to this trend that is beginning to grow across North America. Buoyed by digital technology that lets us work from almost any location, increasing numbers of people now work out of their homes or live above their offices. David Salmela does a little of both, showing in his own residence how this reincorporation of our public and private lives can lead to new and more playful forms of living and working.
Most houses separate public and private activities, with living and dining areas kept apart from sleeping and bathing rooms. The return of work to the home, often in the form of the home office, does not easily fit that old formula. Salmela’s house both integrates and separates public and private pursuits, offering a model of what it means to live above the store in the twenty‐first century.
From the midpoint of the garage in the side of the house, you have two choices. You can follow the stone retaining wall down the slope to the gravel yard and the glass door that leads to Salmela’s office or you can take the concrete steps, with their horizontal timber rails, up and over the rock ledge, where you come to a wood deck, an open‐face white‐painted fireplace, and another set of steps that lead to the front door of the house. The very nature of these dual entries indicates the difference in how this house accommodates both living and working: Salmela gives his home and office their own entrances, equidistant from the point of arrival and as far away as possible from each other.
Clad in durable black Skatelite panels, the house has horizontal bands of projecting aluminum flashing that not only protect the resinous recycled‐paper panels from moisture, but also express the layers of functions within: office at lowest level, garage and office at the midlevel, main living spaces above that, and a guest area at the top. The flashing serves, as well, to lighten the visual heaviness of the dark cladding, providing deep shadow lines that highlight its blackness. Likewise, large windows, white columns, and the natural wood railings and decks that wrap around the house contrast nicely with the black skin.
That contrast becomes even more pronounced on the interior. Whether you enter at the lower level into the light‐ filled office or at the upper level into the main living areas, you go from a largely black‐and‐silver exterior to an interior of white walls, expansive aluminum windows, and warm wood trim. The dark‐gray tile floors and the deep blue‐purple ceiling and central skylight over the kitchen further emphasize the brightness and expansiveness of the interior.
David and Gladys Salmela can live entirely on the main floor, with its living, dining, and kitchen areas all are in a single large space along the back of the house, and a bedroom, bath and laundry room along the front. An open wood stair, within its white‐painted wood‐slat enclosure, leads to a wide upstairs hall, with two bedrooms and a bathroom and sauna, feeling like a captain’s quarters on the top deck, complete with a projecting balcony that allows you to look out over the undulating rock to the street below. Down the stairs from the main living level, you come to the garage and the biggest surprises in the house: the rock ledge on which the structure stands forms part of the garage wall, looking like the hardened lava flow that covered this part of the world eons ago.
Up a step and through another door, you come to Salmela’s office. You expect it to be in the basement, having just left the rock‐hewn garage, but instead, you come into a story‐and‐a‐half‐high room, with a storage balcony up half a flight to your right, and with another slat‐railed stair down to the large‐windowed office below. Minimally furnished, with a blue‐painted conference table, two white chairs, and Salmela’s office chair and drafting table by the door, the spare office exudes the modest humility that characterizes much of Salmela’s life. Meanwhile, the built‐in wood counter, topped with miniature models of recent projects, exemplifies the playful imagination that energizes his work.
Excerpt from:
‘The Invisible Element of Place: The Architecture of David Salmela’ by Thomas Fisher, 2011. Page 199‐201
Few people live over the store anymore. That once‐common integration of our lives with our livelihoods has largely disappeared as we have segregated our existence into separate realms of job and family, a division reflected in how we lay out our cities. Through single‐use zoning, we have kept different functions physically distinct and often quite distant from each other, resulting in people having long commutes and little time for play between the demands of living and working.
David Salmela’s home and office reflects the resistance to this trend that is beginning to grow across North America. Buoyed by digital technology that lets us work from almost any location, increasing numbers of people now work out of their homes or live above their offices. David Salmela does a little of both, showing in his own residence how this reincorporation of our public and private lives can lead to new and more playful forms of living and working.
Most houses separate public and private activities, with living and dining areas kept apart from sleeping and bathing rooms. The return of work to the home, often in the form of the home office, does not easily fit that old formula. Salmela’s house both integrates and separates public and private pursuits, offering a model of what it means to live above the store in the twenty‐first century.
From the midpoint of the garage in the side of the house, you have two choices. You can follow the stone retaining wall down the slope to the gravel yard and the glass door that leads to Salmela’s office or you can take the concrete steps, with their horizontal timber rails, up and over the rock ledge, where you come to a wood deck, an open‐face white‐painted fireplace, and another set of steps that lead to the front door of the house. The very nature of these dual entries indicates the difference in how this house accommodates both living and working: Salmela gives his home and office their own entrances, equidistant from the point of arrival and as far away as possible from each other.
Clad in durable black Skatelite panels, the house has horizontal bands of projecting aluminum flashing that not only protect the resinous recycled‐paper panels from moisture, but also express the layers of functions within: office at lowest level, garage and office at the midlevel, main living spaces above that, and a guest area at the top. The flashing serves, as well, to lighten the visual heaviness of the dark cladding, providing deep shadow lines that highlight its blackness. Likewise, large windows, white columns, and the natural wood railings and decks that wrap around the house contrast nicely with the black skin.
That contrast becomes even more pronounced on the interior. Whether you enter at the lower level into the light‐ filled office or at the upper level into the main living areas, you go from a largely black‐and‐silver exterior to an interior of white walls, expansive aluminum windows, and warm wood trim. The dark‐gray tile floors and the deep blue‐purple ceiling and central skylight over the kitchen further emphasize the brightness and expansiveness of the interior.
David and Gladys Salmela can live entirely on the main floor, with its living, dining, and kitchen areas all are in a single large space along the back of the house, and a bedroom, bath and laundry room along the front. An open wood stair, within its white‐painted wood‐slat enclosure, leads to a wide upstairs hall, with two bedrooms and a bathroom and sauna, feeling like a captain’s quarters on the top deck, complete with a projecting balcony that allows you to look out over the undulating rock to the street below. Down the stairs from the main living level, you come to the garage and the biggest surprises in the house: the rock ledge on which the structure stands forms part of the garage wall, looking like the hardened lava flow that covered this part of the world eons ago.
Up a step and through another door, you come to Salmela’s office. You expect it to be in the basement, having just left the rock‐hewn garage, but instead, you come into a story‐and‐a‐half‐high room, with a storage balcony up half a flight to your right, and with another slat‐railed stair down to the large‐windowed office below. Minimally furnished, with a blue‐painted conference table, two white chairs, and Salmela’s office chair and drafting table by the door, the spare office exudes the modest humility that characterizes much of Salmela’s life. Meanwhile, the built‐in wood counter, topped with miniature models of recent projects, exemplifies the playful imagination that energizes his work.
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