Stone Stories: Brett Woods
Q: What was the appeal of this desert location?
The appeal is in the barrenness – this area is so unique, there’s nothing else like it. There are some tough months in the height of summer, but from September to June, it’s magical out there. We have these beautiful sunrises and sunsets, nature everywhere, and it’s so quiet. It’s a special place. I knew there would be a powerful beauty in taking something this rugged, rough and unrefined and placing something very refined in it. It’s a delicate balance because you want to build something that’s beautiful and confident, but you don’t want to distract from the natural beauty around you.
Q: How did your choice of materials answer this challenge?
We chose materials that would naturally patina over time. Materials that can wear the weather and do it in a graceful and elegant way. The CMU [concrete masonry unit] blocks act as the structure but also the finished material. We matched it to the granite boulders beneath, so it’s like this thing was erected from the ground. The house itself is wrapped in brass because it wants to age, to turn from a golden colour to a deep, rich brown. And the unfilled Eco Outdoor travertine on the floors, it’s immediately imperfect – that’s the beauty of it and that’s what happens when you use natural materials.
“I think if something is beautifully imperfect and it’s naturally patinated over time, the idea of letting it go is a beautiful thing – not trying to control it, because you can’t."
Q: How did you pair precision with imperfection?
This house isn’t precious because of the way it is intended to be used, but that doesn’t mean the details still can’t be precise. You can use materials that are imperfect in a perfect way. The Scala travertine flooring from Eco Outdoor was customised in size so we could take the grout lines and run them the length of the home and line them up to connect both ends of the CMU columns. It took a tremendous amount of effort to get it right, but that little detail, you may not see it right away, but you feel it. Great architecture is when you care about the things you can’t see immediately but you can feel, and this is one of those details.
Q: Could you have achieved this with another material?
No. And I say that confidently because we use travertine a lot in our practice. It’s been around a long time – it’s the definition of timelessness. If that floor was something else, like a porcelain tile, would it be as successful? I think not even close. The ruggedness of Eco Outdoor’s Scala travertine speaks to the stones and the boulders that it’s floating above, and it’s a nice light palette that isn’t too bright but has a lot of warmth in it, and which picks up on the surroundings. To me, that flooring was always the only option.
Photography Joe Fletcher
Product Scala travertine
