Prolific Seattle-based firm Olson Kundig has just unveiled a magnificent home that manages to combine the best of sustainability and luxury. Tucked into 3.4 acres of land in Woodside, California, the California Meadow House is a family estate that boasts a mind-blowingly sustainable extravagant design that includes three guest cottages, private vineyards and a massive swimming pool. However, the home’s luxurious amenities play second fiddle to the home’s high-performance profile, which enable the home to be completely net-zero energy.
The California Meadow Home was definitely a design created to be seen. With a sense of non-chalant elegance, the home is definitely an example of luxurious home design. However, it’s not all about aesthetics in this project as the beautiful home is a net-zero energy design.
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The beautiful complex, which includes a main home for a family of five, as well as three separate guest homes, sits on an idyllic landscape of open land with views of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Leading up to the main home, guests are greeted with a private driveway lined with hundreds of preserved old-growth olive trees.
The overall theme of the unique home design is outdoor living. Throughout the space, large glazed walls and expansive outdoor areas create a seamless connection between the interior of the home and the exterior. The home was built for socializing with plenty of space for entertaining large groups of people in the outdoor dining area in the vineyard, or simply enjoying time with family and close friends around the infinity pool.
The home’s layout was centered around connecting the interior spaces with the outdoors. The family’s main living area, for example, features an all-glass wall that opens up completely, leading out to the incredible landscape and expansive outdoor seating area. For private functions, a dining pavilion was built with retracting window walls that lower completely into the ground to open the space to the surrounding nature. However, behind these ultra-elegance spaces, the home design conceals a high-tech sustainability profile, comprised of both passive and active energy-efficient features.
Designed to generate more energy than it uses, the buildings run on several high performance systems including a large solar array that covers over half of the roof. Geothermal and hydronic heating and cooling systems were installed as well.
The home’s long, narrow structure was specifically designed to allow for cross-ventilation which reduces the need for air conditioning. Also, the home’s abundance of large windows and glazed walls allow for optimal natural light to flow throughout the interior. The home design also features flat roof sections that not only minimize heat gain, but were also installed with a rainwater collection system that irrigated the native species planted around the home.
Photography by Matthew Millman via Olson Kundig
