Living floors lifted four feet over the flood datum, without a single step feeling like a levee.
- year
- 2023
- area
- 5,100 SF
- program
- Private residence
- recognition
- AIA Florida Merit Award, 2023
Rebuild on a legacy family lot: the owners wanted the island house they remembered, with the performance the island now requires.
A flat, salt-aired corner parcel a street back from the ocean side of Key Biscayne, in a neighborhood of ground-hugging ranches slowly lifting themselves above the datum.
Travertine · Cast concrete plinth · Teak screens · Impact glazing
Rather than a house on stilts, a house on a garden plinth: the cast plinth steps up through planted terraces so the four-foot lift disappears into the section. Above it, two travertine-faced volumes slide past each other to make a shaded entry the width of the trade wind.
Every opening is impact-rated and every screen is teak; the storm posture is invisible until the shutters are asked for, and then the house closes like an instrument case.
Set to solar time.