Sonoma Spa Retreat

USA

Photo © Bruce Damonte

Residential

Architects: aidlin darling design

Location: USA
Year: 2009

This retreat space was created as a private exercise, meditation and relaxation studio for a businessman and his family. Topography, orientation and relationship to landscape were all considered in the choreography of experience that heightens one’s sense of discovery, accentuates privacy and ultimately provides the serenity of escape.

The building’s form is defined by a collection of simple rustic cedar boxes that provide a counterpoint to the surrounding landscape. The rectilinear forms are in turn cradled by the curving walls, which allow the resultant space to burrow into the earth. The wood deck of reclaimed teak extends interior space out into the landscape, obscuring the boundaries between inside and outside. A canopy of cantilevered lodgepole pine floats above the roof, providing much needed shade to the southern face of the building and its’ sundeck.