Living on the coastline: Big Sur House

 Big Sur, California, United States 

Architecture and Interior Design: Field Architecture

Landscape Design: Joni Janecki & Associates

Photography © Joe Fletcher

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Big Sur house sits among rugged nature, offering panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean. The house makes way for the landscape, and in doing so unlocks the breathtaking experience of living on the coastline. The architecture is shaped as a series of adaptations to the environmental conditions that it mediates. 

Jess Field: "Situated on a parcel of land atop jagged cliffs, Big Sur presented an opportunity to “tune into the same kin d of power and majesty of the natural world.”

Jess Field: “As a first step, we had to pause and listen to absorb the natural behaviours and the magnitude of the forces that shape this remarkable place. Only then could we proceed, and with humility.”

The house is comprised of a series of slender roofs that appear to float above the massive stone walls which connect the building to the ground. The tapered stone walls are laid with thin, long courses of gray stone that echo the striated cliff faces which surround the house, making the building appear as an extension of the cliffs. 

The spaces of the house are arranged in a carefully orchestrated procession which guide us from the entry, across the ravine, into the living spaces and out onto the pool deck  – forming an immersive experience of winding through the Cypresses towards the edge of the continent. 

Big Sur house on Youtube: