J . Roc Design

Trefoil Glass House

Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng

TREFOIL GLASS HOUSE

J.Roc Design

ARCHITECTS
J.Roc Design

LEAD CONTRACTOR
Alex McKenzie

CONTRACTOR
Cypress Woodworks

MANUFACTURERS
Vitro®, Ann Sacks, Tubelite, J.Roc Design, Living Roc

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Andy Harris

ENGINEERING MILLWORK
Peter Pomerantz Woodworking

ARCHITECT IN CHARGE
Jeremy Jih

ENGINEERING
Peter Pomerantz Woodworking

PHOTOGRAPHS
James Leng

AREA
5000 ft²

YEAR
2016

LOCATION
Stowe, United States

CATEGORY
Houses

Text description provided by architect.

The Trefoil House inherited a pre-existing three-sided hearth and partial foundation, located on a rural sloped site in Stowe, Vermont.

Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng
Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng

The house was reimagined using the hearth as a structural and narrative generator: The house is built out from its triangular core as three squares joined at the corners.

The three-sided hearth is used as a central program driver, producing a continuous trefoil circulation loop around the perimeter of each square and providing a central point of orientation while allowing for the house to spread into the landscape.

Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng
Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng

Public spaces are enclosed in glass, while private spaces are shielded with sculpted louvers to differentiate the rotationally symmetric plan.

A 150 foot long curtainwall wraps continuously around six sides of the house.

Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng
Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng

The trefoil circulation allows for an unbroken perceptual experience of the pristine site, but critically also allows for an entirely wheelchair accessible upper level in order to accommodate the client’s elderly parents and an aging-in-place philosophy.

First, the desire to perceptually bring the incredible view into the interior. To accomplish this, we borrowed from the method of James Turrell’s skyspaces in which a square of open sky appears as a flattened image through the total reduction of the frame edge.

Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng
Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng

All visible thresholds, sills, and headers to distinguish the passage from interior to exterior are eliminated. Second, the need for complete accessibility on the upper level.

The client and his parents work in the geriatric healthcare industry and are intimately acquainted with the architectural needs of the elderly.

Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng
Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng

To allow for uninterrupted wheelchair access, thresholds, sills, and teak shower pans are flush, and the entire trefoil circulation path is accessible, broad, and clearly defined.

This productive convergence of perceptual and pragmatic needs allowed for design decisions from the scale of the detail to the scale of the building parti to satisfy both drives at once.

Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng


Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng
Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng
Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng
Trefoil Glass House
© James Leng


Trefoil Glass House
Lower level plan
Trefoil Glass House
Upper level plan

J . Roc Design
T +1 617 2376052
J . Roc Design
90 Wareham Street, Unit 203, Boston, MA 02118, United States