The Matchbox House / Bureau for Architecture and Urbanism

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Text description provided by the architects. The concept for the house is a matchbox in which the four inner quadrants (cedar siding) slip past one another within the outer sleeve (standing seam metal wrapper).  By doing so, each end of the inner quadrants either juts out past the outer sleeve, or is pushed into it, thereby creating outdoor space that is still within the confines of the sleeve. The house is meant to read as an urban cottage nestled in the woods and therefore in its approaching (short) elevation it has the geometry of an iconic 4 sided house. To articulate this even more, it is raised on an inset concrete plinth, which expresses the bottom two edges (and therefore fifth side) that would normally touch the ground.