This design for a vacation home in Water Mill, New York, was created by Bates Masi Architects and Damon Liss Inc,   utilises a boardwalk as an architectural device for weaving together multiple portions of a historic site with new building and landscape elements.

Located on a creek-front property, the site contains two culturally significant structures designed by architect Andrew Geller. The two Geller structures, a small house and studio, were built in 1962.

The owners of the property requested a design that seamlessly incorporated the protected Geller structures, Yew garden, and new residence. To achieve this objective, a constructed path traverses the site to link visual and spatial relationships between these elements. The path takes the form of a raised, wooden surface that recalls the boardwalks of Geller’s architecture.  

A new central lawn is defined as the boardwalk wraps to extend through the main house. A cantilevered deck wraps the end of the main house at the termination of the path, providing views of the sloping wetland and creek. The surface of the path folds up and over to become the enclosure of the main house, simultaneously functioning as floor, wall and roof. In these ways the physical, material and spatial qualities of the path facilitate an architectural dialogue between the Geller structures and new house that is interwoven with the existing landscape, collecting the once individual elements into a unified whole.

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Source: Bates Masi Architects