Overview & Features

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Casa Vista Entry

Overview - "Casa Vista" is designed around spaces where art and technology co-exist in harmony. Lavish use of custom-crafted solid oak interior casework in a southwestern Arts and Crafts style, large-volume spaces and extensive lighting design create multiple gallery spaces where collections of fine arts and crafts may be displayed to their best advantage.

Unique architectural and landscaping design, Smart Home lighting controls, digitally controllable exterior accent lighting and low-voltage architectural lighting ensure the distinctiveness of this luxury home, day or night.

Panoramic views and exceptional individual spaces such as dual kitchens, home theater space, home administration office/network server center, home workshop, four car garage space, ample off-street parking areas, extensive covered loggia and an expansive open plaza at the rear combine to create a contempory Southwestern home for the 21st century.
Front Portico at Night- Specialty lighting on glass block.
Exterior Rear at Night - Specialty lighting on corner GB.

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Color Kinetics digitally controlled specialty lighting can create over 16 million colors. Use included standard programs or create your own.
Architectural Features - One of the most distinctive exterior features of Casa Vista is the wrap-around awning(s). The awning, on two levels at the rear elevation, serves to unite the various volumes of the structure, to enhance the horizontal "hill-hugging" intent of the architecture and to provide practical control of sunlight on the extensive view windows, shading the windows in the summer months but allowing low-angle sunlight to penetrate the interior in the winter months. The vertical "columns" serve as redundant structural supports for the cantelevered awnings and help to define discrete volumes within the structure by interrupting otherwise long horizontal planes between the awnings. At the front elevation the awning visually ties the projecting portico to the rest of the structure.
Bas Relief on exterior. Glass block window.
Another notable design element is the lavish use of glass block to enhance the distinctivness of Casa Vista. With the exception of two windows in the master and student baths, which are standard Decora pattern (clear wavy), all of the glass block used in the construction was fabricated using Vue pattern (clear) block, which was custom sand-blasted on-site on the interior surface. The frosted surface acts both to provide privacy, while admitting generous amounts of light, while also acting as a "rear-projection" surface for interior, accent and specialty lighting at night.
Glass Block - Sand blasted on interior surface.
 Glass Block - Portico flooded with light while maintaining privacy.

Another aspect of the Casa Vista design idiom is the use of chamfers on the roof parapets, along the enclosing walls of the loggia and under the windows. These provide relief modeling to otherwise flat surfaces and add visual interest to the design.

During the application of stucco emphasis was placed on achieving a soft "adobe like" radius on edges which were appropriate to the scale of the building.
Exterior Detailing - Wrap-around awning, chamfered parapets, pierced columns, integrated glass windows.

Another unique aspect of the architectural design is the use of view windows with "integrated glass". In this design bronze mirror insulated glass units (dual 1/4 inch tempered glass panes with a 1/2 inch spacer) are set directly into the structure framing (from the inside) without the use of wood or metal frames. The windows provide total daytime privacy to the interior without the use of blinds or drapes. The bronze optical coating on the windows also significantly reduces glare and slightly warms the color temperature of the incoming sunlight, thus enhancing the panoramic views of the landscape from within. The reflective bronze optical coating also assists in reducing the heat load imparted to the house by the sun.
Pierced Column Detail

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