Architecture Wednesday: Cocoon House

Cocoon House is a LEED-certified environmentally green dwelling on Long Island. It’s called Cocoon because its rounded enclosed walls form a Cocoon shape towards the northern and western neighbors while providing shelter and privacy. The glass side of the house faces south to take in ocean breezes and open views. The cedar shingle cladding of the north/west side of the home is a nod to the architectural material palette of the historic neighborhood.

The 16-foot-high Long Island cottage is split in two: ‘cocooned’ into a soft opaque shape that provides privacy, and transparent and crystalline to allow for views onto an undisturbed landscape. Its L-shaped 1730 square foot footprint is shaped by the legal restriction to build at a 150-foot radius from the wetlands and to keep a 35-foot distance from the adjacent properties. Luckily, the view of the greenery towards the ocean faces south and east, so that the southern glass façade provides both views and passive heating gain.

In addition to providing privacy, the thermal mass of the thick northern/western walls, supported entirely by a timber structure, keep away humidity and retain heat. On the southern/eastern side the sliding doors open to catch the breezes from the Atlantic Ocean that temper the heat in the warmer months. In the winter the glass facade collects heat from the southern sun, and in the summertime, interior shades cut 50 percent of the solar heat gain.

The sensual experience of the sun in a structure that is half opaque and half exposed guides the framework of the design. In the half of the cottage that is transparent, sunlight filters through the translucent colored skylights and reflects off of the water cistern; the skylights above the hallway of the bedroom wing are based on the color theory of Goethe, used by J.M. William Turner in his 19th c. paintings of sunlight above water. The colors range from vermilion red, which signals sunset and rest, above the master bedroom, to deep yellow, which signals zenith and activity, nearest the living room.

Geometric patches of colored sunlight from the skylights and glimmering water reflections from the reflecting pool/cistern project onto the interior white back wall, which is punctured by a few small windows.

You feel both protected from, and open to, the outside world depending on where you are in the home.

You feel cocooned.

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