Avant-Gardens House 02

La Porte, Indiana

Built on a 103-acre environmentally sensitive single-family housing development in rural Northern Indiana, this is a year round getaway house for a young city-dweller with a love of undisturbed nature. The house is compact, with elemental forms. Inside, activity is centered around a fireplace that anchors a single space that contains living, dining, and kitchen areas that opens on all sides to catch views of landscape and sky. Up a half flight of stairs, a sleeping loft has ample storage and a tucked away bathroom. Outside, an array of different spaces—lawn, garden, patio, open, closed—offer a range of options for entertaining, sunbathing, and just looking at the surrounding landscape. The exterior palette is simple, inexpensive and easy to maintain: white-washed wood siding and glass.