Tao

Wood does the connecting. It runs in continuous planes across ceilings and walls, binding the rooms into one material atmosphere and warming the black-and-light geometry of the architecture. The spaces organize around a triple-height internal patio that carries the staircase and pours natural light into the center of the plan; the fully glazed faces extend each room into the gallery, the pool and the lagoon beyond.

The five elements complete the palette: vegetation in the patios and the koi pond that accompanies the entrance, water again in the pool that cantilevers toward the lagoon, metal in the black aluminum skins and frames, fire in the hearth of the home. Upstairs, the main suite takes the calm rear face of the house, its bathroom lit by an internal patio of its own; the top level adds a home cinema and an office suspended over the landscape.

Nothing in the interior competes with the system: every material and every room has its assigned place, and the balance between them is the design.