The founders of Brooklyn-based nArchitects have completed a sustainable lake house for their family in New York's Hudson Valley, featuring mass timber construction and traditional live-edge cedar siding reminiscent of early American settlers. The 2,200-square-foot CLT House sits on an eight-acre lakefront property near Rhinebeck in Dutchess County, emerging from a forest clearing as a striking example of modern eco-conscious design.
Architects Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang designed the two-story retreat as a nature sanctuary for themselves and their two teenage children, prioritizing environmental sustainability throughout the construction process. The house is strategically positioned 200 feet from the lake to minimize environmental impact while maximizing views of the surrounding wilderness. "The two-story house was designed with progressive sustainability goals in terms of material and energy use, and a spatial organization that leverages the opportunities of cross-laminated timber in relation to its natural surroundings," the architects explained.
The building's distinctive exterior features waney-edge boards, also known as live-edge siding, which nArchitects describes as "the oldest exterior wood cladding technique used by early settlers." This untreated cedar siding will weather naturally over time, creating varying patinas depending on sun exposure and tree canopy coverage. The house appears as an irregular geometric form, with the ground level laid out as a square with askew lines and the upper floor shaped like a plus sign.
Construction relied almost entirely on cross-laminated timber (CLT), a sustainable building material that remains relatively uncommon in the United States but is gaining popularity among environmentally conscious architects. The CLT panels were installed in just 11 days, significantly reducing construction time and minimizing disruption to the natural site and surrounding neighborhood. "CLT is an ecological, efficient and fire-resistive building system that also provides a warm and natural feeling," Bunge and Hoang noted.
The interior design emphasizes the natural beauty of exposed CLT elements throughout, creating a cohesive wooden aesthetic complemented by large windows and sliding glass doors that offer immersive forest and lake views. The ground floor features an open-plan layout with living, dining, and kitchen areas organized around a central core. The second floor contains three bedrooms, a study, and a bathroom, with each corner of the plus-shaped upper level opening to the space below.
Innovative lighting design includes mirrored skylights that punctuate three corners of the upper level, creating dramatic light effects throughout the day. "Skylights – clad with mirror panels on the interior – punctuate three of the corners, injecting shafts of real and reflected daylight within, like the hand of a clock rotating around the core throughout the day," the team explained. Additional design elements include a bright green metal staircase providing access to private spaces and a playful mesh rope wall overlooking the ground floor.
The home's architectural concept originated from a 2008 nArchitects design for the Ordos 100 project, an unbuilt real estate development in Inner Mongolia curated by artist Ai Weiwei. The original scheme called for a 10,000-square-foot house, but the architects scaled down the design and enhanced its sustainable features for this lakefront version. Custom metal elements and bold finishes, including speckled black-and-white terrazzo surfaces in the downstairs bathroom, provide contrast to the predominant timber aesthetic.
Renewable energy systems make the house nearly self-sufficient, with geothermal wells paired with radiant floor heating and cooling systems throughout the structure. Solar panels installed on the roof "generate more than enough electricity for daily usage," according to the studio. The project extends beyond the building itself to include landscape interventions aimed at improving site biodiversity, with removed trees replaced by more diverse species and invasive aquatic plants cleared from the lake to improve water flow and quality.
This project represents nArchitects' continued commitment to sustainable design, following previous works including a net-zero energy nature center at New York's Jones Beach and architectural enhancements to Chicago's Navy Pier. The CLT House demonstrates how traditional building techniques can be combined with modern sustainable technology to create environmentally responsible architecture that harmonizes with its natural setting.
