Project: Casey House
Architects: Side Angle Side
Location: Austin, Texas, USA
Area: 1,900 sf
Photographs by: Casey Dunn
Casey House by Side Angle Side
Casey Dunn is a very well-acclaimed architectural photographer from Austin, Texas. In fact, his photographs are featured in numerous projects on our website. But this time, his photographs are of his new contemporary residence.
Casey House is designed by Side Angle Side and it is located in the eastern parts of Austin, Texas. The house has a very fundamental shape, reminding the owner of one of his earliest architectural photo shoots.
Designing a home for an architectural photographer was an exercise in simplicity and restraint. We cannot say it any better than the homeowner himself: “Early in my photography career, I took a photo of a house in a wooded area of Maine. The house was a basic shape – as one would draw as a child – just a box with a gabled roof. It fit perfectly in a square crop.
Ever since then I’ve been interested in that form. With the direction for this house, I had no program and came to Side Angle Side with just that fundamental shape. By the end of the process I had a wife and a dog and the program evolved, but the shape stayed the same. During the design and building phase, I was also photographing for a book on architecture and interiors of Marfa.
While we didn’t set out to make a Marfa house in Austin, it certainly inspired design decisions in terms of materiality – modest and minimal, while also maintaining a sense of warmth.” With the client as our editor, we adhered to that vision of simplicity.
The result is a monolithic dark volume with carefully placed punched openings. A concrete site wall pierces the volume, defining the approach and entry experience.
