Vote for the CARRBORO HILLSIDE HOUSE in this year’s Matsumoto Prize awards!
Blueplate PR clients
ON THE BOARDS: Blueplate PR Client Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, Designs Modern, Net-Zero-Ready Cliff-Hanger in Western NC
Calling the site for this project “one of the tightest little corners I’ve ever had to make something fit,” Chapel Hill architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, has designed a modern, sustainable home on a mountainside in Swannanoa, NC, a tiny township between Asheville and Black Mountain, NC.
Designed for P.J. Miller, a musician, and artist Katie McWeeney, the two-story, modern, thoroughly “green” house will hug the flat part of the couple’s cliff-side property and include three bedrooms, two baths, an open kitchen/dining/living core, two studios/workspaces, two carports, and abundant decking for outdoor living and connectivity between the indoors and outdoors.
Chief among Schechter’s inspirations for this design was the couple’s lament over never having enough kitchen, workspace, or studio space in previous homes. “We’re trying to remedy that in this house,” she said, accepting the challenge despite the restrictive size of the property’s buildable area.
Actually, the site’s verticality helped her solve the studio/workspace problem. She’s tucked two studios beneath the living spaces, along with carports/loading zones on each end. The loading zones will create sightlines and open-air spaces within the entire volume, she pointed out, “and create the sort of positive-negative composition I like.”
Along with art and music, Miller and McSweeney enjoy cooking, baking, and hosting cooking classes. To enhance their passion, the Schechter-designed kitchen will provide a profusion of natural lighting along with an open, professionally planned interior.
Will the Miller-McWeeney home contribute to Schechter’s ever-expanding portfolio of net-zero residential designs?
“Yes, of course,” she said emphatically. “Our goal for all our houses is to be net-zero, net-positive or at the very least, net-zero-ready.” The latter means that the completed house will be wired and plumbed for solar panels to be installed in the future. “That, plus rooftop water collection for gardening should make this a very sustainable house for this great couple to enjoy.”
For more information on the architect and her work, visit acsarchitect.com.
Blueplate PR Client’s Project Featured in Metal Architecture magazine.
pod architecture + design’s “Hillside House” gets national press.
by Christopher Brinkerhoff, Associate Editor
Zig zagging down a hillside in Carrboro, N.C., a black-clad house blends into a wooded site. The home is the vision of partners and design duo Douglas Pierson and Youn Choi, pod architecture + design PLLC, Chapel Hill, N.C.
The house comprises three forms that are connected. At their simplest, they are rectangles that connect to form a Z pattern, descending the slope of the hill toward a creek.
Corrugated metal panels give texture to the lengthy façades that are punctured by horizontal windows, which emphasize their length. To keep the lines clean, the architects specified limited trim.
Two Appearances
The home blends in with other houses in the neighborhood in terms of size and scale, but because of the slope, the two lower forms disappear from the street view. The buildable area on the hillside site was limited to a triangular, northeast corner of the site. Instead of facing the streetside to the east, the house faces the creek bed to the southwest. READ MORE
HOME BUILDER DIGEST: “The 18 Best Residential Architects in North Carolina”
North Carolina is one of the most popular states to live in the country. The “Triangle” region of the state, which includes Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, provides visitors and residents with a myriad of reasons to enjoy the state…
For those considering relocating to the region and those seeking to upgrade their North Carolina homes, the best residential architects are necessary.
The [HBD list] showcases the best residential architects in North Carolina. These firms were selected based on their experiences in residential designs, awards won, years in the industry, and media coverage, and they are the best in the industry. (Click here to see the entire list.)…
…Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, Architect
What separates multi-award-winning firm Arielle Condoret Schechter, Architect, from the other architects is a clear understanding of how each project is about more than designing an exceptional space. Each project has the capacity to enhance people’s lives and lifestyles, and this small firm is dedicated to doing exactly that. READ MORE
CHAPEL HILL MAGAZINE: “Lake Living — Two world travelers set down sustainable roots on Lake Orange”
Writer: Morgan Cartier Weston. Photographer: John Michael Simpson
“We needed someone to maximize every square inch of buildable space,” Tom said. So they turned to Chapel Hill architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, “to execute their vision…”
Eater Carolinas magazine names new-concept wine shop designed by pod architecture + design as one of “14 Most Anticipated…”
Rocks & Acid, a new retail wine shop and tasting room coming this year to Chapel Hill’s Southern Village neighborhood, is one of “The 14 Most Anticipated Restaurants Across the Carolinas for 2022,” according to Eater Carolinas digital magazine.
While the name doesn’t say it, food will play a key role in owner Paula de Pano’s desire to have her customers relax and linger at Rocks & Acid. To that end, pod architecture + design included a large pass-through window at the shop’s exterior patio in their design. A “curated selection of artisan cheeses, charcuterie, conservas, caviar and cakes” will be available at the window and interior wine bar, according to JNK Public Relations.
CLICK HERE to go to Eater Carolinas to see the complete list.
CLICK HERE for more information on pod a+d‘s design for Rocks & Acid.
Chapel Hill Magazine features another modern, sustainable, custom home by Blueplate PR client Arielle Condoret Schechter.
By Morgan Cartier Wester | Photography by John Michael Simpson
Inhabitat.com: “Carrboro Hillside House looks like a giant black snake”
Designed by Blueplate PR client pod architecture + design
by KC Morgan for Inhabitat.com
The location is tucked into a protected forested area covered in trees with a creek nearby. It’s an odd-shaped lot with a hillside and boulders, surrounded by nature. It was a huge challenge for architect Doug Pierson and designer Youn Choi, but the end result is absolutely stunning. READ MORE
Global Design Platform Features Project by Blueplate PR Client pod architecture + design
Archello.com selects Rabbit Hole Distillery
For this unique facility — a modern structure in an industry steeped in tradition — the design team embraced the strategy “form follows process,” allowing the building to take shape in response to the bourbon production process it would house. The result: a distinctive, responsive building that shares its design and purpose equally with the building’s capacious copper and steel equipment.
Taking a cue from Louis Kahn’s Salt Institute, the overall form is divided into “service” (warehouse) and “served” (atrium and event space) volumes. A public passageway navigates between the two without intruding on either before it ascends, on a meandering path, through the 60-foot-tall Manufacturing Atrium enclosed by glass and blackened wood louvres. The path continuesover the fermentation tanks, around the 48-foot-tall copper still, and on to “Overlook,” the 150-seat event space.
Throughout the interior journey, the gleaming still is always in view, underscoring the notion of the building as an homage to the craft of bourbon making. READ MORE and VIEW PHOTO GALLERY.
Save the Date: “Hillside House” will be open for public touring Saturday, November 13
On Saturday, November 13, NCModernist.org will present a public “Trickle Tour” of Hillside House at 130 Old Pittsboro Road, Carrboro. Specific time slots and ticket information will be announced later.
NCModernist (aka NC Modernist Houses) hosts several tours of modern house each year. Executive director George Smart created the “Trickle Tour” format in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The format allows the public to visit new or newly remodeled modernist houses at a “trickle” of the normal rate for the nonprofit organization’s home tours. Timed admission assures that very few people are inside a house during each time slot.
Doug Pierson, AIA, and Youn Choi, founding partners and principal designers at pod architecture + design in Chapel Hill, created Hillside House for their own family of four on a wooded lot within walking distance of downtown Carrboro.
In April 2020, the house caught the attention of the Wall Street Journal. A few months later, Chapel Hill Magazine featured it in an article entitled “Labor of Love.” It has also been published in Builder Magazine, Architizer, and in Dwell and Architect magazines’ galleries of residential projects.
This will be the first public tour of the angular house on Old Pittsboro Road that’s wrapped in corrugated black metal and appears to be twisting and turning its way up a steep hillside.
To see more exterior and interior photos, go to the “Hillside House” page on Pierson’s and Choi’s website: podand.com/work#/carrboro-house.
Pictured Above: Doug and Sora on the first “living” level. Above them: Oscar at the cantilevered desk in the middle “work” level. Above right: Youn on the bedroom, or “sleep” level. (Photo by Cornel Watson for Chapel Hill Magazine.
Client News and Media Recognition 