Project Spotlight: Wilkinson Residence

This Portland home was built for musician Roy Wilkinson, who wanted the building to incorporate into the natural woodland environment that surrounds it, but also to aesthetically resemble the flow and feel of music.

"The client desired a house that felt as if it were isolated in the forest and that would allow him to hear the songs of birds.” Designed by Robert Harvey Oshatz Architect, the Wilkinson residence seems more an extension of the forest than an intrusion. According to the architect, "this house evades the mechanics of the camera, which makes it difficult to grasp the spaces as they flow inside and out. One has to actually stroll through the house to capture its complexities and its connection to the exterior, with the use of a natural wood ceiling floating on curving laminated wood beams which pass through a generous glass wall which wraps around the main living room."

Though the project was completed in 2004, the careful attention to environmental integration, at least in an aesthetic sense, makes this project an excellent example for others to follow. The Wilkinson Residence shows us that modern architecture doesn't have to be sterile and sharp - it can instead be organic and flowing, and blend into the place it occupies rather than imposing itself on the landscape.

To read more, or to see more pictures, you can view the project on the architect's website.