the snow house

Voorsanger Architects designed the The Wildcat Ridge Residence, located on a site at an elevation of 9,200 feet in Aspen, Colorado, USA. The transparency of the building allows for maximum views without competing with the scale of the mountains. Not impacting the landscape reverted to rehabilitating and reforesting the once uprooted site. This was not a situation where capturing the landscape was the challenge but providing a major sustainable architecture in such a fragile but challenging environment. The landscape itself is so dominant, spectacular, and immediate, with its alpine vistas on the horizon the design called for an architecture that moved the scale of the exterior into the interior. The design evolved by following the longitudinal parallel of the crest of the mountain, with the public rooms, study, and master bedroom oriented west toward dramatic views.

photos by Thomas Damgaard, Paul Warchol, Paul Bardagjy