Small, Simple, Sustainable – Hampden Lane House, Bethesda, MD

If your current living conditions or home purchase perspectives will have you consider a smaller home, allow the Hampden Lane House by Robert Gurney Architects inspire you in matters of small house design. This 2,200 square foot-two story home was commissioned by a visionary entrepreneur in Bethesda, Maryland. He had a very clever demand. He wanted a small sustainable home that would take up as little of the plot as possible. The ingenious team at Robert Gurney Architects helped render his desire a reality by building a home shaped like a cube, with lots of glazed surfaces and an extra 1,100 square feet of usable space up-top, on the flat roof terrace. The owner can now admire the wonderful green expanses of treetops that open up before him, blending in with the Bethesda skyline.

With this small house design, the architects deliberately wanted to reinvent the way they conceived a residential project, as well as signal a departure from the current building trends displayed in the neighborhood. “Instead of building a large house with pretentious ties to the rural past, this new house is smaller with a stronger relationship to the modern, urban area that Bethesda has become.” By building a smaller home, the Robert Gurney team adopted an approach that’s more mindful of nature and the specificities of the building site and its fauna. The home’s diminutive size also entails a smaller carbon footprint, which does not, however, skimp on the comforts of living. Most furniture and décor featured inside leans towards the minimalist esthetic, while also being informed by the principles of futurism.

(Source: RobertGurneyArchitect.com)