Project Statement

Heads House is a single-family dwelling that derives its name from a series of sculptural heads created by the client’s father, Richard Staples Dodge, who was a painter and sculptor. Many of these cardboard heads with their playful, often triangulated shapes, have adorned the client’s houses over the past 50 years. The house acts as a memory device which brings the client into constant contact with forms from their past.
Compelled by the client’s story, the architecture acts as a memory device. The facades reference Dodge’s sculptural forms at the end caps, which are then stitched together into a massive roof form. Designed for the clients to age-in-place, the house is organized as two volumes—one long and low that contains the main living spaces and master suite, and a two-story volume containing the garage and guest rooms. The gap between is the main entry. Once inside, each space is defined by a unique vaulted ceiling to create implied “rooms” in an otherwise open plan with expansive views to the bucolic landscape. The material palette (metal, shake) and red color are borrowed from the utilitarian buildings that surround the site, grounding the abstract form in its local context.
Built for a modest budget of $260,000 (1,850sf / $141/sf), Heads House was constructed with a conventional residential material palette and framing methods. The wood framed structure is clad in galvalume siding and roofing, with certain masses highlighted by painted cementitious shake. The exterior window walls are constructed from patio doors, ganged together to create larger expanses of glass. The interior palette is light and neutral, emphasizing the geometry of the interior volumes, filling the spaces with ambient natural light.