BAU_Butzer Architects and Urbanism

The Niña is a multi-generational family home, named after Columbus’s three-masted and favorite ship whose 50’ deck helped connect continents and frame views of distant shores. Its design navigates difficult topography and drainage that deterred past property owners, and represents a joyous conclusion to negotiations with the US Army Corps of Engineers regarding flood plains and site coverage. Three gabled volumes descend in formation through the narrow site towards the Lake Texoma edge. A covered bridge captures prevailing winds where parents, children, and grandchildren safely convene to tell stories and connect across time.

Client descriptions of family social patterns informed the Niña’s parti. A switchback stair anchors the north end of a two-story interior datum while the ground floor family room and upstairs master bedroom share lake views to the south. The double-height space facilitates conversation, natural ventilation and eastwards engagement of the pool, covered deck, and grandparent’s house. Operable glazing alongside social spaces is shaded from the western sun and sheltered under the convening breezeway.

Cedar shakes evoke the bark textures of existing trees, and form the stretched and shedding skin of the home. Towering hearths constructed of stacked local sandstone are the moorings that gather family around warm fires. Ocular moments are carved into the poché to connect the family to views throughout of the lake, landscape, and sky. Like its namesake, this residence serves as a vessel that transports its family through challenges of nature and site constraints to discovery at the water’s edge.