Project: River Ranch
Architects: Jobe Corral Architects
Location: Hill Country, Texas, United States
Photographs by: Casey Dunn
River Ranch by Jobe Corral Architects
Jobe Corral Architects have stepped in our spotlight with one of their latest projects in Hill Country, Texas.
The River Ranch is a stunning modern ranch that incorporates a main area, guesthouse and a fishing workshop. Its design is complemented with a lap pool, screen porch and an extensive deck with plenty of amazing patio features. On the inside, it combines a sort of a farmhouse look with the modern ideologies, creating a very fitting look for its environment.
The design for a main house, guesthouse and fly tying studio is deeply connected to the land. Its protective form shields inhabitants from the Hill Country elements while expressing a strong sense of place. Two-foot thick rammed earth walls seem to spring from the land to form a protective outside layer of the C-shaped plan, an otherwise glassy and open structure.
A lap pool, screened porch and extensive terrace reside in a courtyard facing the meadow below. Large, mature oak trees surround the building’s north and south edges, blocking both the strong southern and northern winds.
Generous overhangs, steel trellises and wood screens protect the building further, filtering light when desired and shielding glare when needed. The massive rammed earth walls are visible from every room of the River Ranch, at times playing a main role and at others seeming to blend into the surrounding landscape.
Stucco, cedar, steel, glass, and limestone complete the materials palette, with custom copper details appearing on the fireplace and front door. An outdoor fire pit, kitchen, dining and the screened sleeping porch further strengthen the indoor/outdoor connections.
