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
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.
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.
by Naser Nader Ibrahim
The Baboolal residence is a net zero house for a multicultural family of four. The husband is Indian originally from South Africa and the wife is American. They are both in high stress professions: he is a pediatric anesthesiologist and she is a pediatric nurse. They have two small children and pets.
The impetus for building this house was their previous frustration with living in a cookie cutter developer house with a lot of wasted space and illogical planning.
They decided to build a custom house that would give them openness for family time, while also creating privacy and quiet areas for the parents to rest between shifts and for the kids to have their own spaces. Also, an immediate connection between indoor and outdoor space was part of the brief. READ MORE…
The Baboolal Residence, one of the newest modern, Net Zero houses designed by Chapel Hill-based architect Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, is featured in the current print and digital editions of RESIDENTIAL DESIGN magazine.
The Baboolal Residence is a modestly sized single-family home for a family of four. “…At every turn on this project, [Arielle] prioritized the qualities of light, views, and building performance over superficial, budget-busting bling,” observes the magazine’s renowned editor, Claire Conroy.
The nine-page spread includes Arielle’s site and floor plans along with architectural photography by Tzu Chen of Raleigh.
Arielle’s project is one of three houses highlighted in the magazine’s “Design Lab” section, described in this edition as “Modesty Becomes Them: Three modern dwellings find expression in understatement.”
Residential Design is a relatively new, but already award-winning, publication “for architects and builders of distinctive homes.” The print edition is published six times a year.
The Baboolal Residence has also been featured recently in Contemporist.com and Inhabitat.com, the latter with the headline, “No waste, no carbon, no wonder this net-zero home breaks the mold.” “
For more information on Arielle Condoret Schechter and her projects, visit acsarchitect.com.
Arielle Schechter, a registered architect recognized by the A.I.A., has made a name for herself in the Triangle area for her nationally recognized custom houses, Micropolis micro-houses, and mid century renovations. She is currently based in Chapel Hill. For over 26 years, she has specialized in warm, energy-efficient, and modernist residential architecture, including cutting-edge Net-Zero design and passive house construction. Schechter studied at the North Carolina State University (NCSU) School of Design where she studied with Frank Harmon and Harwell Harris. After graduating in 1987, she worked on several projects with her father, renowned Chapel Hill architect Jon Condoret, until the mid-1990s when she became principal of her own firm…READ MORE
Made up of new construction and the adaptive reuse of an old warehouse and church building, the Rabbit Hole Distillery in Louisville, Kentucky’s East Market District (aka Nulu) is truly a campus, with retail, dining, office and event spaces, in addition to those for manufacturing bourbon, rye, and other spirits. The architects at North Carolina’s pod architecture + design answered a few questions about the project. READ MORE
Chapel Hill-based architect and Blueplate PR client Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, recently learned that she has received two Best of Houzz Awards for 2021 — one for Design, the other for Client Service — adding to the four Best of Houzz Awards she’s received since 2016.
Houzz is a leading platform for home design and remodeling. Over 40 million unique monthly users comprise the Houzz community. The awards recognize just three percent of the 2.5 million active home professionals represented on the website.
Houzz presents its annual awards in three categories: Design, Customer Service, and Photography. The Design Awards honor professionals whose portfolios are the most popular among the Houzz community. (Follow this link to view Arielle’s Houzz portfolio.)
Customer Service honors are based on several factors, including a professional’s overall rating on Houzz and client reviews submitted in the previous year. Since she joined the platform in 2016, Arielle has maintained a “5 out of 5” rating for “Work Quality,” “Communication,” and “Value,” and she continues to accrue glowing reviews from her clients.
“I’m honored to receive both awards this year,” she said. “And I’m so grateful to all of my wonderful clients who took the time to write those kind reviews. No matter what they wrote, the pleasure was truly mine.”
To learn more about the architect and her work, visit her firm’s website: www.acsarchitect.com.
About Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, is a licensed, registered architect based in Chapel Hill, NC, who specializes in Modernist, energy-efficient buildings with a focus on passive houses, net zero houses, and her new tiny house designs, Micropolis Houses™. She is a lifelong environmentalist and animal advocate who was practicing sustainable design long before it became mainstream. She lives in Chapel Hill with her husband, Arnie, and an assortment of foster animals in a modern house she designed. For more information: www.acsarchitect.com
Blueplate PR client’s net zero project is featured on an international platform that recognizes and acknowledges design talents from all over the world.
The Baboolal residence is a net zero house is for a multicultural family of four. The husband is Indian originally from South Africa and the wife is American. They are both in high stress professions: he is a pediatric anesthesiologist and she is a pediatric nurse. They have two small children and pets.
The impetus for building this house was their previous frustration with living in a cookie cutter developer house with a lot of wasted space and illogical planning. READ MORE
The newest modern, sustainable, custom home designed by Blueplate PR client Arielle Condoret Schechter, AIA, of Chapel Hill receives an extensive spread on Contemporist.com. To read the full story and see all of photographer Tzu Chen’s beautiful images, click HERE.
Client News and Media Recognition 