Canopy House: Open Up Interior Spaces Embracing the Lush Landscape of the Sonoran Desert

Rob Paulus was in charge of upgrading the Canopy House situated in Tucson, Arizona. The client expected the firm to open up the house interior spaces and bring the outside indoors. This design allows the house to embrace the lush landscape of Tucson’s desert site while also enhancing the experience of the flow of the living place. In the project, they went with new forms that are clean and crisp to make a contrast to the rounded and heavy vocabulary of the existing property.

Walls were taken down by applying a reductive approach to the interior, allowing better function, views, and circulation. On the exterior part, there is an existing trellis porch that had been turned into an outdoor kitchen and living room intact with a newly raised canopy. The 20×40-foot rectangle of steel and wood lifts over and up the Canopy House to offer more light and views to the outside lush oasis and blue sky of the Sonoran Desert.

The new scheme is dominated by a natural color palette and material. The design team also incorporated Douglas Fir wood into the design as the client wanted to establish nature-inspired spaces in the home. The wood is used on interior cabinetry as well as on the exterior as the underside of the roof plan hovering over the outdoor living room and kitchen.

The Canopy House has an enclosed in-house that was redesigned to engage the outdoors as well as create calming interior space in a modern setup.

Via Rob Paulus Architects