What if you could lift up your roof as easily as you can open a door? Olson Kundig Architects principal Tom Kundig took the idea of indoor-outdoor living to its logical (and mechanical) extreme with Shadowboxx, a private home in the San Juan Islands, off the coast of Washington. With shifting shutters, walls and doors, Kundig’s design effectively turns the entire house into a sleeping porch. The bathhouse has a roof that opens like a hatbox.
Olson Kundig later released a time-lapse video demonstrating it all — a first for the firm and for the project, which was completed in 2010. The short documents a day in the life of the house and illustrates its many possible configurations against a backdrop of moving mist and gloriously varied light conditions.
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The movie — directed by Kevin Scott of Röllerhaus Pictureworks and Design Co and scored by Seattle-based composer Joshua Kohl — kicked off the firm’s efforts to document its architecture in new ways. Filming Shadowboxx over the course of 24 hours also shifts the focus from the building to the landscape, which Kundig says is more important than the house. “The house serves as a vehicle to focus the experience of the site — the structure is as open and as nature-focused as possible, becoming a meditation about the site upon which it sits,” explains Kundig.
Photo courtesy of Michael Burns/Olson Kundig Architects
Photo courtesy of Tim Bies/Olson Kundig Architects
Photo courtesy of Tim Bies/Olson Kundig Architects
Photo courtesy of Michael Burns/Olson Kundig Architects
Photo courtesy of Michael Burns/Olson Kundig Architects
Top photo courtesy of Kevin Scott/Olson Kundig Architects