The Humpert House lands as a stealth alien object in an otherwise traditional suburban subdivision, questioning the notions of normative development. It occupies a site that the developer used for staging equipment and cut and fill during the development of the subdivision. The house sutures itself into this incidental topography, and cantilevers beyond where the grade drops. This, along with the streamlined massing and facade articulation, provides an expressive formal front that matches the personality of the client. The black metal facade simultaneously allows the building to recede into the foliage but also pronounces an industrial ethic to the assembly of the house.

The massing is an assembly of planes that wrap the programmatic elements, which are separated into public and private zones. The public zone faces the street and includes the kitchen and living components, with a loft space overlooking from above. A porch is cantilevered, and serves an extension of the interior living space. The private zone – containing the bedroom and master bathroom – bends back away from the street, and is tucked away into the woods.

The house design was approached largely through a tectonic articulation of a geometry that responded to its site. This rigid and systematic overlay onto a formal object comes through in both the construction ethic and its aesthetic forms. The structural system is an LVL superstructure and a flat SIP roof that are exposed to the interior, but are painted to create a muted texture. The exposed industrial elements are then juxtaposed against the sky by way of a dominant clerestory. Finally a series of apertures provide strategic views to the back and side yards to connect to the woods, and to the front to surveil the drive approach.