Locus

Tucked into the steep foothills of Appalachia in Southeast Ohio, Locus is a new residence designed and built by Solstice Design Studio as an architect-led design build.

The site carries a lot of history and has brought a lot of context to the design. Abandoned underground coal mines ripple through the region beneath it. Part of the land was once logged, now reforested and reclaiming itself. A gas well still operates on the property. Monday Creek runs, and the site sits just above its floodplain.

The home is situated among dense woods and a rich canopy, so thick in summer that the light filters lime green through the sea of mostly deciduous tree leaves. The land folds and drops with hardly any flat areas, except for two natural building pads. Trails wind through the parcel, connecting shaded hollows and soft rises.

The boulder has followed this project from the beginning. It appeared in the earliest charrettes and has never left. It is not one specific stone but an idea that kept returning throughout the many iterations during Schematic Design. A custom storage piece designed for the ground level entry, where it will hold coats and glow softly with integrated display lighting, will rest on one side on a boulder. Storage meets sculpture. The outside brought in.

The colors of acid mine drainage, iron oxide, rust, and steel became the inspiration for the project. The exterior is clad entirely in steel. Inside, the home is simple, warm and beautifully detailed, with wood, limewash, stainless steel, slate and even some rammed earth in the lounge. Much of the interior millwork and furniture will be fabricated from site-sourced wood, milled and made locally.

The name Locus emerged in the studio, somewhere between a song, a quiet moment, and a passage from Be Here Now. A locus is not just a location, but a place charged with meaning. This project is about creating a home where land and life connect at a deeper level.

Construction is underway.

The gallery below includes developed exterior renderings, schematic interior renderings, and photos of - Caroline operating a mini-excavator during the foundation dig, corrugated steel gathering patina on site, boulder selection for a custom storage millwork piece, process sketches, a schematic site study model, a full site analysis drawing, an aerial of the site in fall, and a page from a beloved book in the Solstice library which became the impetus for "Locus."