william o’brien jr conceptualizes the hendee-borg house

‘hendee-borg house’ by william o’brien jr, sonoma, california
image © peter gruthrie
all images courtesy of william o’brien jr

boston-based architect and assistant professor at MIT william o’brien jr has recently completed plans for the hendee-borg house in sonoma, california. the home is designed to accommodate the personal and creative lives of two artists, a sculptor and media artist, through layered physical and metaphorical symmetries. a calculated sawtooth canopy with alternating solid/transparent panels stretches across linear and opposing studio spaces filtering natural light into different qualities throughout the day. the rigid symmetry informed by the workshop areas is broken internally by the interjection of the domestic program. the kitchen and dining room on the ground floor sit in the center of the ground floor, extending out onto the large exterior deck. the dining area is encased within a wrapping bookshelf wall and is open to the upper galleries, flanked by two short staircases on either side. the circulation, in contrast to the mirrored geometries, exists in a circuitous fashion as it defines a meandering loop through all the interior functions.

image © peter gruthrie

ground floor kitchen and dining below the studio spaces
image © peter gruthrie

image © peter gruthrie

sawtooth roof line
image © peter gruthrie

image © peter gruthrie

image © peter gruthrie

view through the studios
image © peter gruthrie

image © peter gruthrie

studio spaces
image © peter gruthrie

dining area
image © peter gruthrie

living room
image © peter gruthrie

image © peter gruthrie

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project info:

project team: william o’brien jr., design principal; bhujon kang; linda yifei zhang
visualization: peter guthrie