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Curved-Roof Guest House Avoids the Hobbit Look

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Curved houses can be at risk of being just a little hokey. But here is one from Sarasota, Florida, that carries it off. There is nothing hobbit-like about this confidently executed structure.

From TOTeMS, this guest-house is sited overlooking a wide river and it offsets a bold, modern curved roof with squared-up structure at the ground level.

There is an element of the “rockabye cradle in the tree tops” here in this mezzanine bedroom, open to the living room behind the bed. What a superb bedroom!

Like an upended boat, the bed appears to be surrounded by water. But the sleeping room is high and dry, way up high in the treetops.

The view of the trees is intimate, up close.

The living room below, on the ground floor, shares the mezzanine bedroom’s view over the river. To get the big curved roof, glue-lam beams were used.

This floor offers a treetop deck as another way to meld with the surrounding.

The bathroom and kitchen are in the forested end at the back of the structure, leaving living and sleeping for the front and the  river view.

So how does this avoid the hippie look of curved houses? I think it is because the house is confidently executed. It is as if the architect is saying, –yes; we humans are part of nature. We embrace curves and randomness like nature.

But we are also sentient beings; it is part of our logical nature to create the linear, straight lines of most architecture. It is natural for us to inhabit both worlds; the natural and the man made.