Bridge Deck
Kerhonkson, NY – 350 SF – 2019 – Completed
A house in a clearing perches on a hill with sweeping views of the Shawangunk Mountain ridge. The rolling landscape encourages living outside: morning reading in the sun, a walk in the forest, cool afternoon drinks, and evening grilling of vegetables fresh from the garden.
Rather than consider a deck as a single space, with the same dimensional expectations of an indoor room, how could an outdoor space sponsor a catalog of activities more flexibly?
The deck proposes a single-file space wide enough to comfortably fit a table, but narrow enough to feel like your flying above the landscape on both sides. Stretching 35 feet from the house into the nearby forest tree canopy, the linear deck allows you to traverse two opposite worlds.
A series of zones allow different outdoor rooms of space to change with the seasons, from outdoor dining to grilling, to shaded reading to nursing newly planted herbs and vegetables soaking up the sun. Each spot along its length offers a changing perspective of the landscape beyond both its sides.
The silvered-cedar structure’s ad-hoc angled legs and bracing playfully reach out into the landscape, like legs of a mythical creature finding its footing on the sloping terrain. These legs in turn give specificity to the spaces of the deck above, each marking a change along its length. Blue construction netting infills the wood structure, a surreal filter of the lush green landscape all around. From below, the wood structure creates a shaded canopy for a hammock or a blanket on the gentle slope.
Structure: Silman