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Three Rusted Steel Cubes Make One Desert Home

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The desert provides a climate that is best enjoyed outside, so a home in the desert that has you outside walking between three separated spaces may not be such a bad idea, as it gets you out in nature, while providing shelter when occasionally needed.

This unpretentious 1,500 square foot house from Rick Joy Architect is in the form of three completely separate spaces, each of which must be accessed from outside.

Set far from other houses, modesty is not such a big issue. Only the odd deer or rabbit would ever see you in this open bathroom.

Joy creates modern architecture that cultivates sensory experience, harmonizes with the landscape, and eschews formal pretense. Like other animals, we all poop, and Joy is not about to hide that, when leaving the bathroom space completely open can enable contemplative reflection in nature.

Each of the rooms has a bathroom. The largest, at 780 square feet is a living space-art gallery/kitchen/dining room/bathroom. The next largest is the 440 square foot bedroom/bathroom, and at 200 square feet, the guest cottage/office bathroom is the smallest.

Each of the three takes in a different view, with the same overall design of one simple glass wall set in one side of the cube.

Very simple identical maple finishing, for floors, walls, and ceilings inside each of the three structures unifies them as a cohesive suite of rooms.

Looking Southwest towards Tucson, the bedroom gets the afternoon sun in the Sonoran desert, which Joy describes as “a fantastic place in the most correct meaning of the word; it is at times a dreamlike fantasy of a landscape. . . . the desert’s beauty extends beyond objects and things to an atmosphere of place that is defined by quality of light and other sensory kinds of input.”

Only the small office faces North, creating a calming work environment. All three are heavily fortified with thick ceiling and wall insulation – keeping out the brutal desert heat.

Like in each of the structures, this desert-exposed sink in the office cottage is scrupulously clean-cut in design.

But it is the outdoor spaces that are really what this house is about. Gravel courtyards, fragrant trees and a fountain sculpture are designed to stimulate the various senses. The house is intended to be enjoyed outside, in the many little areas carved out by and between the rooms.