Prime Highlights:
- Alterstudio Architecture boasts a modern U-shaped home that dissolves into the hillside of Austin.
- The home emphasizes natural materials, expansive views, and seamless indoor-outdoor flow.
Key Facts:
- Perched atop a rolling hill in Austin, the home is designed around an interior courtyard to facilitate privacy and airflow.
- Mahogany-hemmed glass and regional stone encase the home’s modern but locally referenced look.
Key Background
A counterpart to site-sensitive architecture, Alterstudio Architecture has created another masterpiece with this U-shaped hilltop residence in Austin, Texas. Scaled to mirror the bully landscape’s ridges, the residence is transported to be built on a slope and wraps a private inner courtyard. Not only is this architectural shape secluded, but it also captures natural light and lovely hilltop views.
The home design is motivated by a desire to integrate landscape and building. The U-shape allows each arm to serve a purpose—one private bedrooms, the other public space, and services elsewhere—unified by the courtyard. The courtyard is the seen and experienced center of the home, linking interior of the home to the outer natural world.
Alterstudio’s unique materiality is wrought to maximum impact: native stone for native grounding presence, rich-grained mahogany on window walls for warmth and elegance. Windows are not holes—they’re frame devices for thoughtfully chosen views of the landscape, from long vistas of Austin’s iconic Pennybacker Bridge. Floor-to-ceiling glass, woven in conjunction with stone and wood, erases boundary between in and out, offering residents unmediated interaction with the world.
The house is a model of modern regionalism—a marriage of innovation and tradition. It does not overwhelm the property; it evolves naturally out of it. Natural materials were selected not only for aesthetics but for their ability to withstand Austin’s mercurial climate. The project is a testament to Alterstudio’s consistent dedication to creating architecture that is deeply contextual, to crafting timeless livability, durability, and beauty.
This house is a subdued but aggressive declaration of the manner in which contemporary architecture can both serve and enrich the ground upon which it stands.
