After the Fire
Boulder, CO
The Calwood wildfire blew through the Mountain Ridge Subdivision, north of Boulder, on October 17, 2020, incinerating all 19 of the homes that made up this mountain community that we had master planned in 1989. The 50,000 gallon cistern that served each building site with a fire hydrant never had an opportunity to be activated to fight a fire fed by 40 mph winds as the inferno came over the Dakota Ridge from the West. As architects of six of those residences, we felt deeply the losses that these homeowners experienced. Each one has dealt with the trauma in their own way, as each decides on their next course of action – to rebuild or relocate. In the case of our longtime friends that had been living in one of the homes we had designed for a previous owner, they made the bold decision to rebuild on the site they so loved, that had been transformed that frightful day. As our approach to design is always rooted in response to site, climate, and spirit of place, the reimagining of a home on the transformed landscape necessitated a fresh design concept.
The new house is set back into the slope and the configuration of spaces wraps an exterior courtyard for indoor/outdoor living. The outdoor room will have new plant material to bring life, color, and seasonal expression to the foreground living extension. Views to the plains were captured beyond, as the trees that burned were removed to allow the succession of grasses and vegetation to come to life to follow the burned landscape. The fire resistant material palette, consists of rusted Corten steel and corrugated bonderized metal, along with broad wood soffits and board-formed concrete.
The Owners’ are both engaged in living & working in the home so there are distinct areas for business and photography, along with places that support being together with each other and for gathering with family and friends. The use indoors of board-formed concrete walls give an honest message of grounded strength as the walls literally act as buttresses to shoulder the load of the retaining wall that burrows the home into the hill. It is a home of re-creation & deep connection to place.
