CLT House: A Cross-Laminated Timber Retreat in the Hudson Valley
In the Hudson Valley near Rhinebeck, New York, a distinctive house known as CLT House rises from a clearing in the woods along an eight-acre lake. Designed by Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang, the founders of Brooklyn-based studio nArchitects, the residence serves as a personal retreat for the architects and their two teenage children. Far more than a seasonal getaway, the project represents an architectural statement about material innovation, environmental responsibility, and the rethinking of domestic life within natural surroundings.
The two-storey home was conceived with sustainability as a central principle, using mass timber framing and live-edge cedar siding to minimize environmental impact while establishing a powerful aesthetic language. The house is carefully positioned 200 feet (61 metres) back from the water’s edge, a choice that reduces disruption to the delicate lakefront ecosystem while creating a sense of retreat within the forested site. Every aspect of the design, from material selection to spatial organization, responds to ecological concerns and the desire to integrate architecture with its environment. In this way, CLT House demonstrates how architecture can harmonize with nature while offering an elevated model for sustainable living.
Design Concept and Exterior Expression
The house takes the form of an irregular composition: a ground level set out as a distorted square and an upper level arranged like a plus sign. This arrangement reflects an architectural logic that emphasizes openness, views, and the flexible use of space. Externally, the house is clad in waney-edge cedar siding, a technique known as live-edge siding. This cladding recalls the oldest forms of wooden construction used by early settlers, while also embodying a contemporary aesthetic. Left untreated, the cedar is designed to weather naturally, ensuring that the house will evolve visually over time according to orientation, tree canopy coverage, and exposure to sunlight.
The untreated cedar siding is paired with the use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) for the walls, floors, and roof. This material choice creates an architectural dialogue between tradition and innovation, highlighting how new forms of timber construction can reconnect contemporary building materials with the natural environment. The mass timber frame and CLT panels were erected within 11 days, minimizing site disturbance and reinforcing the architects’ ecological intentions.
Interior Spatial Organization
The 2,200-square-foot interior is organized around a central core and offers immersive views of the lake and forest through large windows and sliding glass doors. The ground level accommodates a continuous living, dining, and kitchen area, creating a fluid social zone for family interaction. The second floor includes three bedrooms, a study, and a bathroom. The plus-shaped layout of the upper level creates four distinct corners, each of which is open to the level below. This design enhances connectivity between floors and invites natural light into the interior through mirrored skylights that shift illumination throughout the day.
Playful architectural gestures also define the home. A bright green staircase introduces a striking contrast to the warm timber palette, while a mesh rope wall overlooking the ground floor injects a sense of informality and experimentation. The interiors showcase the natural beauty of CLT, with the panels left exposed as both structure and finish, complemented by custom metalwork and terrazzo surfaces in functional spaces like the bathroom.
Environmental Strategies
CLT House was designed with progressive sustainability goals, combining advanced timber construction with renewable energy systems. The building incorporates geothermal wells connected to a radiant floor system that provides efficient heating and cooling. Solar panels on the roof generate more than enough energy for daily use, positioning the house as a net-positive energy producer. The construction also extended into the landscape: invasive plant species were removed from the lake to improve water quality, while native tree diversity was enhanced by replacing removed specimens with multiple species.
| Sustainability Feature | Implementation | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) | Used for walls, floors, and roof | Reduces carbon footprint, creates warm interior atmosphere |
| Solar Panels | Installed on roof | Generates surplus electricity for the home |
| Geothermal System | Wells paired with radiant floors | Efficient heating and cooling, reduces reliance on fossil fuels |
| Landscape Interventions | Tree replacement and lake restoration | Increases biodiversity and improves water quality |
Architectural Analysis
The design of CLT House demonstrates how spatial logic and material experimentation can come together in a coherent architectural language. The irregular massing challenges conventional domestic typologies, while the monolithic use of CLT introduces both structural and experiential value. By leaving the timber exposed, the architects highlight the inherent qualities of the material: warmth, tactility, and the natural variation of wood. The project also reflects an awareness of context, not only by respecting the ecological sensitivity of the lake but also by drawing on historical precedents in wood construction such as live-edge siding. In this way, the house serves as a bridge between the long-standing traditions of vernacular timber architecture and the modern pursuit of sustainable building practices.
Project Importance
The importance of CLT House lies in its role as a prototype for future sustainable domestic architecture. It demonstrates how mass timber can serve as both structural and aesthetic material, offering lessons in efficiency, construction speed, and environmental responsibility. The project contributes to architectural discourse by rethinking the suburban lake house not as a luxury object, but as a case study in ecological design and material innovation. Its emphasis on energy generation, biodiversity, and low-impact construction illustrates how architecture can actively respond to climate challenges. For architects and designers, CLT House provides valuable insights into how projects can move beyond efficiency toward resilience, adaptability, and integration with natural systems.
✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight
The use of CLT in this project establishes a strong visual and material identity, with exposed timber surfaces shaping both atmosphere and function. Skylights, mirrored interiors, and playful details like the mesh rope wall enrich the spatial composition. Yet the design raises critical questions about scale and material exclusivity: can such a monolithic approach adapt across diverse contexts, or does it risk becoming a stylistic limitation? Still, by pairing CLT with renewable energy systems and ecological site strategies, the architects frame a path forward for domestic architecture. The project stands out for showing how sustainability and spatial experimentation can coexist in a refined architectural language.
Conclusion
CLT House is not simply a weekend retreat; it is a built manifesto about the future of sustainable domestic architecture. By relying almost entirely on CLT, the project explores how mass timber construction can redefine residential typologies in ways that are environmentally responsible, structurally efficient, and experientially rich. The spatial organization of the house, with its central core, mirrored skylights, and open connections between floors, embodies a design approach that values light, transparency, and interaction with nature. At the same time, the integration of renewable energy systems and ecological landscaping demonstrates a comprehensive strategy that extends beyond the building itself to encompass its site and surroundings.
As cities and communities worldwide seek to balance human habitation with environmental stewardship, CLT House provides a timely case study. It reminds architects that domestic projects, however small, can serve as laboratories for experimentation in materiality, sustainability, and spatial design. The project points to a future in which architecture is no longer conceived as static form but as a dynamic interplay between structure, nature, and human life. By embracing cross-laminated timber and embedding ecological awareness into every decision, CLT House highlights how thoughtful architectural practice can generate enduring lessons for the profession and the planet.
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