We’re having fun designing a home for clients who have an amazing view of the Columbia River in Washington (coming soon!). As part of our conceptual design phase, we’re exploring various ways of designing the entry sequence. (By entry sequence, we mean the approach from the driveway, the experience as you approach the house, and the actual entry into the home.)
When designing an entry, the entire journey should be a well-choreographed experience that draws someone to and into the home. The destination should inspire the journey. And for sites with an incredible view, getting the entry sequence right is especially important.
As we research and collect inspirational images of entry sequences with views, we’re noticing five ways to design the entry of a home so that it responds to the surrounding view. And as always, we like to share what we learn and observe.
Today we’re sharing five ways of designing an entry with a view. These entry sequence examples helped our clients envision what was possible for their project and we’re hoping you find them useful too!
Frame the view
When you have a view, the most obvious thing to do with the entry is to frame it at the entry. This can be achieved in various ways but typically it involves an all-glass entry that lets the visitor see through to the view beyond. The experience is more powerful when there are solid walls flanking the glass entry so that your eyes naturally gravitate to the light of the entry and beyond to the view.
In the two projects below, the overall forms of the houses are clean, simple, and are separated by glass entries. The transparent entries with low flat roofs contrast nicely with the solid walls and pitched roofs of the adjacent house volumes. This helps to draw your eyes through the house and frame the view to the landscape beyond.
Frame the view (but don’t enclose it)
Another way to frame the view is to let architectural features of the home frame the view, but not enclose it completely. This can be achieved by a combination of good house siting, by breaking up the home into independent volumes of space and locating them in a way that allows views through the separated forms, and/or by manipulating the roof structures to help frame the views.
In the two projects below, the homes are sited so that there are deliberate views beside the structures. Instead of enclosing the entry in a transparent volume, the entry is defined by roof overhangs that draw your eyes past the structure and frame the view beyond.
Cove House by Leroy Street Studio. Photos by Christian Phillips.
Conceal the view, then reveal it
In contrast to framing the view, the opposite can also have a powerful effect. You can conceal the view so that you can’t see it when you approach the house, and then surprise the visitor and reveal it once you’re inside. This “shock and awe” approach can be achieved by designing the front of the house to be more solid with less windows and then having large window openings facing the view. It also helps to locate the spaces that want a lot of light and windows (living, dining, kitchen, master bedroom) oriented towards the view while pushing the support spaces (garage, storage, closets, mechanical, laundry, etc) that don’t need much daylight towards the front wall.
In the project below, we clearly know there is a view. From the driveway, we can see the mountains and scenery surrounding the house, but we don’t know what the view is until we enter the house and look through the floor to ceiling glass of the living space.
Conceal the view, but offer glimpses
Similar to the approach above is the idea of concealing for the most part, but offering some glimpses of it, essentially teasing the visitor into wanting to see more. This can be achieved in a similar way as the previous technique with a more solid front face, but in this case, you provide some windows that offer glimpses all the way through the house to the view.
In the two projects below, there are glimpses of the nearby water upon arrival over the vegetated roofs and through the ribbon windows, but for the most part, the rest of the structures are quite solid on the entry face. In both cases, we like how the architects deliberately chose to lower the main floor level of the homes below grade a few feet to help minimize the disturbance of the building on the view. This works great for sloping sites. The homes read more as single-story homes when in fact they are actually two stories. This move also puts the flat roof at eye level so that you can more easily look out over it to the water beyond.
Shore House by Leroy Street Studio. Photo by Scott Francis.
Pole Pass Retreat by Olson Kundig Architects. Photos by Benjamin Benschneider.
Prioritize the view (minimize the structure)
And lastly, there is the idea of prioritizing the view to the fullest. In this case, you don’t frame it, you don’t conceal it, you just let it take precedence. You do as much as you can to hide the structure and conceal it from view so that you minimize it’s presence entirely. This can be achieved by burying the house in the ground, putting a green roof over it, or making it as transparent as possible.
In the projects below, the view takes center stage, but in different ways. In the first project, the house is at a lower elevation so that you can look out (even walk out) over the roof to the ocean view beyond. In the second project, the green roof minimizes the visual disturbance of the home and camouflages the house within the vegetated landscape. In both cases, the house is secondary to the view.
Till House by WMR Arquitectos. Photo by Sergio Pirrone.
House in the Mountains by Gluck+. Photos by Steve Mundinger.
We hope you find this round-up of entry sequences helpful as you design the entry of your home (even if you don’t necessarily have a view). Designing an entry that entices a visitor, draws them to your door, and then welcomes them into your home can be a challenge. But it also provides a unique opportunity to create a placemaking gesture that announces the entry to approaching visitors while also showing off the view that your property has to offer.
