A House for Two + Two

Pioneertown, California

Living space at sunset, rammed-earth walls cut by tall slot windows onto the desert.

Long living room in rammed earth, low seating, slot windows down both walls.

Bedroom with a curved glazed corner opening to the desert, rammed-earth walls throughout.

The circular courtyard by day, a Joshua tree at its centre against open sky.

The courtyard at dusk, the Joshua tree silhouetted against a pink sky.

The courtyard at night, the Joshua tree beneath stars.

Bedroom with a low bed against rammed-earth walls, a lamp set on the floor.

Axonometric: a linear bar with a circular courtyard cut through its centre, a Joshua tree within.

Plan drawing showing the bar with bedrooms at each end and a circular courtyard at the centre.

A House for Two + Two

Pioneertown, California

Year: 2023–
Type: Private residence
With: Shu Zhao
Status: In development

A House for Two + Two sits in the high desert at Pioneertown, California. The brief was a house that could work as one dwelling or divide cleanly into two.

The plan is arranged around a private courtyard held about a Joshua tree. Bedrooms sit at either end, each with its own outdoor room, so the house reads as two halves sharing a centre. Occupied as one, the courtyard is the middle of a single house; divided, it becomes the ground each half faces onto. Nothing has to be rebuilt to move between the two.

The walls are rammed earth, set into a floor plan sunk below grade. Both decisions are thermal before they are anything else: mass and ground hold the interior steady through a daily swing the desert makes no effort to soften. The earth is local, so the walls arrive at their colour rather than being given one.