Modern Desert House Tour w Architect. Design Inspiration from The Ranch Mine (Home Tour)

Hey everyone, it's Kavin, the principal architect of the Ranch Mine, and this is Ski Ranch. Come on in, let's check it out. Kavin! Yeah. We're in the middle of nowhere. Yes, yes we sure are. And we're out there, for sure. This is incredible. Can you tell me a little bit about this project? Yeah, so the clients came to us a couple of years ago, and basically they wanted a project in the desert. And so we are on a lake here, it's a specific lake for water skiing. Wow. And so when they came to us, it was very unusual and really out there, and those are the kind of projects that we love. And so they wanted just a place to stay for part of the year, essentially, and be out on the lake every day. So how do you even tackle something like this? We are in the middle of the desert, what is unique to designing in this climate? Designing in the desert is all about the sun, the positive and the negative. And so the first thing that we have to do is we have to provide some shade. And so basically, when we conceived this house, we conceived of a house that was basically a roof, just on stilts, and then we just sort of filled everything else in. So actually, the area that we're standing in is a conditioned, livable space. And it's very conditioned and lovely in here. Very nice in here. It's only 40% of what's underneath the roof. So 60% of what's underneath the roof is outside, so it's really about having this indoor-outdoor lifestyle. Right. And so we wanted to create sort of a long, linear house that sort of mirrors the lake, and so you get the big view of the water skiing. And then these sort of stilts, these still columns that go along here, are kind of like the buoys that are out in the water. It's essentially about weaving lifestyle just in and out, in and out, all day long and throughout the seasons. I love that. And you've got a lot of glass. There's a lot of glass here. So you need to consider that protection because the amount of sun, I mean, we're in the middle of summer. Yep. You did brief me. It's very hot. Yes, it is. What do you need to consider if you're going to have that much glass? It's mostly keeping the sun off the glass. We do get a little bit in the morning because you want a little bit cooler in the morning. The other big thing is thermal mass, and so that's trying to regulate the temperature in here. So you'll see these poor concrete walls like this behind here. We have a thickened slab below here, and this is basically trying to moderate the temperature throughout the day to keep it consistent. I love the concrete. It's so cold. It's such a cold material. In Melbourne, it feels completely different in a home, and here, it's just the most welcoming thing you could ever see. You want to touch it. You want to be close to it. You're like, take me to the cold concrete because it's everything you want. It's so hot outside, but you just want to wrap yourself in this cold cave, which you've created. Exactly. Also, I love the steel. Steel is a big part here. Mostly, it started with those stilts, those columns are steel on the outside. There are not many materials that can withstand the heat in the sun, and so steel is one of them. Concrete's another one. Yeah. Stucco plaster is another one of those, and so we're using materials that can withstand the super high temperatures, the blowing sand, those sort of things. And then we wanted to sort of have it be an indoor-outdoor flow and be seamless, and so bringing some of that steel inside was another element that we wanted to do so that you kind of blur those lines of what's inside, what's outside. So we have accents like this in the kitchen cabinetry. This is a cool little feature. This is actually a pantry here that's just integrated. So we wanted to keep things very simple, very minimal, but still have all your typical things that you need to run the home. Door jams as well, and that front door. Very impressive. Yeah, custom pivot doors. The builder, Identity Construction, they do amazing steel work, and so they did all the steel work throughout the house here. When the homeowners first came to us, everything they sort of mentioned was about the lake, and so we knew that we had to find a way, you know, it's maybe, I think, 200 feet from the street to the lake. We wanted to find a way to make that the priority, and so what we did is we created this long sort of boardwalk from the street all the way down through the house and to the lake, and that basically brings everyone that comes to the house directly out to the water, because that's what it's all about. So we have this, what we call like our desert version of a boardwalk, which is just a board stamped concrete, so it can withhold up to the, you know, the sun and the weather out here. We have a little trim detail here that's a steel angle, steel, custom steel for the pocketing doors on the sides here, and so yeah, just using the skills of the trades here. So the kitchen is the heart of the home, of course, in most homes, but especially here, and so we place it at the center of the house, and the house has a narrow footprint. That's by design, so basically, you know, you get the maximum view, we get great cross ventilation through here, so the breezes that do blow when it is nice outside, we let them through here, and so the kitchen kind of follows that long footprint, and it's basically, yeah, this is where it all happens, you know, you can look out at the lake, I can look back at the courtyard at the front, and we've got this beautiful walnut cabinetry here, some steel details, again, in the shelf, and again, a very minimal palette, because the desert's so dynamic, the sunsets, the sunrises, the plants around here, everything's so dramatic, they wanted to keep it simple in here and let the outside and nature really shine. Originally, the idea, the first idea came to us because eight feet is a standard unit of measurement here for a lot of things, and so we started with that, but then we're looking deeper into it, and sort of the idea of eight or infinity was an idea that came about, which is basically a continuous flow of movement, and again, the water skiing, that's basically what it's all about, you're basically kind of doing figure eights out there on the water, and so we wanted to bring that in, and that's where, you know, you go outside, inside, just sort of seamless moving, and again, the house is almost like a pavilion, and you're just moving in and out of the landscape wherever you want to go. And so your proportions all honor that. Correct. Yeah, so, you know, this is a 16-foot overhang, this is 16 feet in width, it's eight feet out there, and so everything is sort of based on, you know, divisible by eight. We love working with clients who are as engaged as DC and Liz were on this project. Basically, the more that the client can bring to us, the better the house is going to be, because what we're trying to do is we're trying to take their lifestyle and create something, a structure that enables them to live that fully, and so the more information we get, the better, and they were so collaborative back and forth on, you know, bringing ideas to the table that we could go off of, and so it just makes, you know, custom architecture should be custom. It should be about them. It shouldn't be about what your neighbor's doing or what the real estate market's saying you should do. It should be how you want to live, and this is a perfect example of that. Come on through. So, there's the dining area here. This is actually a custom dining table. Beautiful table. Yeah, it's... And the steel again. Yep, the steel again. So, again, bringing in some of the elements. Very simple in palette, but, you know, unique in the forms. Then we've got another one of these concrete walls here, and this is the bedroom here. So, this is the sort of primary suite. What's really cool about this is we have this sort of inset door here, which can close off, but most of the time it's just them, so it can stay open and you get the full view, but this door does slide here, and it's concrete. So, the concrete was sort of inset here to allow this to sort of flush. I really like that detail. It's beautiful. Oh, and outside, you've got your own private little retreat. Yes. So, this is a private patio, or semi-private, we'll say, and, yeah, the homeowners can come out here. This is a great spot. It's off of the courtyard where the pool is, so there are gates out to the pool as well, so you can come straight from the pool in here. That's so nice. And then, oh my God. Welcome to the bathroom. Oh my gosh. This is bougie. Yeah. It's a very nice indoor shower. There's doors. Look at the multiple seating you have in here. Yes. It is a steam shower, so you can take a steam in there. Oh, stop it. Or you can walk straight out into the outdoor shower area. Can you hear the desert, guys? Can you hear that? Yes. I love the double water. Yes, of course. Yeah. We'll keep in cycle. There we go. So, the position of the pool? So, the pool, we put in the courtyard for a couple reasons. The first was actually just for safety reasons, to have it fenced in, essentially. Right. Because, obviously, regulation, you would have to have a fence around the pool. Correct. So, the house and the outdoor fence allows that, but the second reason was that we get dust storms here, and so there's a lot of wind that comes through, and this is sort of a private, sort of secondary part. So, you've got the public lake over there that's open to all the elements, and this is sort of the relaxed, tranquil type of environment. In the afternoon, the house shades the pool, so you get sun when it's at its hottest here, you get some shade. So, if you're in the Baja shelf. But in the morning, it gets the sun from the east, so it provides this sort of secondary water element that the house is just sort of this linear element between. What's the length of it? It's 88 feet long. Again, with an H. It's eight? You'll never guess how wide. Eight feet wide. And so, again, it's based on the eights, but it's also sort of an Olympic length. They were triathletes and love swimming, and so they get their laps in in the morning and can go out for a bike in the afternoon. Do you ever have to stop clients and be like, no, that's too much. Like, that's too much now. We've got to stop. Yes. For sure. Everyone always wants more. No matter what you get them, everyone wants more. And so, you do have to sort of rein in the reality, but you also don't want to restrict their sort of creative juices, and you want it to be an open environment where they feel comfortable asking for anything, because sometimes it's those little throwaway lines that you're like, that's brilliant. Let's do that. And so, we always want to be open to the ideas that they have, but of course we have to bring reality in occasionally. When we first came here, I thought it was a ghost town, and it pretty much was. There was just tumbleweed. A lot of steelings. It's just cool. That's very true. There's just tumbleweeds, and I pulled in, and there was no one here, and it was just a flat, dirt lot, and I mean, that's part of the fun of what we do, right, is to create something from nothing, and not from nothing, from their life, essentially, but create something that's here, and now we have all this vegetation, all these desert plants around, mesquite trees, palo verde trees, et cetera, and adding life to the lot. Wow. It's amazing. Thank you. Well done. I'm very impressed. Thanks for watching, everyone. Hope you enjoyed our tour through our ski ranch project, and see you next time.