Facade Focus: Steel

As a bricklayer’s daughter, Susan Desko spent much of her childhood exploring her father’s building sites, which helped inform her improvisational style.

Inspired by a pair of rectangular zinc vases, her very first residential commission began as two chimneys with fireplaces and a kitchen between the two. The house appears in its finished state as a series of forms that evoke minimalist sculpture, including a rectilinear main house, a guesthouse, and a 60-foot-long bridge of raw steel that joins the forms. The intense geometry of the untreated metal changes color with the light of day, while the glass reflects blue sky, clouds, and greenery. Tall logs ornament the facade, lending a textural counterpoint to the smooth coolness of the steel. Desko’s design is at once daring and intuitive—a structure with an edge that seamlessly blends into its natural environment.