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Metal House for Couple Retiring in the New Mexico Desert

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Designed by Anderson Anderson Architecture for a retiring anthropologist and concert pianist, this all-metal house is young in spirit, fresh and original.

Music gets pride of place in its open and bright living room.

Its bold and clean-cut cladding gleams in the soft desert light of New Mexico.

It is sited not far from where the artist Georgia O’Keefe made her famous desert home near the Rio Chama.

The house utilizes a sustainable construction method: prefabrication.

SIPs are used for wall panels, and prefabricated 2×4 long-span trusses for the floors and roof.

Details like light-wells that bring daylight in to the verandah are no-nonsense industrial design elements.

The overall effect of the shiny light perforated metal is crisp, clean and efficient.

But it is also very sustainable. Metal is the most easily recycled material.

Unusually, for a house for a retiring couple, it features stairs.

It would be more typical for thoughtful architecture of this caliber to incorporate “ageing in place” design like single floors and ramps rather than stairs.

But clearly the clients did not intend to commission a house for going gently into this good night.