Berkeley-based studio WA Design has completed the Berkeley Courtyard House. This 4,880 square foot two story residence is located, as its name suggests, in Berkeley, California, USA. The most basic primordial relationship of water and canyon wall was the metaphorical origin for the layout of the home. The water is constrained by the topography and yet needs an outlet. Each material and force yields to the other. At each end of our zinc canyon, at the outlets, a courtyard would naturally form, one towards the hillside and protected from the wind, the other towards the west, hanging, completely open to the views and the winds of the Bay Area. The courtyard between the main house and guest house is protected enough for comfortable twilight dining a good part of the year. The house’s exterior is alternately sheathed in zinc shingles, reminiscent of the craftsman architecture a century earlier, or stucco. We designed strongly canted shed roofs with deep eaves and delicate structural steel supports to give the house a distinctive look and provide protected exterior circulation and ample surface area for the extensive photo-voltaic arrays that power the house.
