Backstory

As one travels around the United States and the rest of the world, society’s selection of their standard house is observed: everyone keeps building their same basic house.  Few seem to ask the question: what does a house want to be? What could a house be? 

We posed that question in 2015. Our answer: the VS1 Study House #1.  This house is a revolutionary achievement that re-imagines what a home can be by making use of leading edge technology in a purposeful way creating an all-glass home designed to be self-sustaining and off the grid. 

Key to the building methodology is extensive use of glass as the primary building material for the exterior building envelope. A balance is achieved between transparent and opaque panels to manage the energy of the sun in winter and summer months. Unique glass details never before used in house construction are standard on a VS1 Home. A new kit of parts has been created. 

Inside the home, the concept of Critical Regionalism is embraced with the choice of materials and a high focus on local sourcing. The living area used reclaimed barn wood and raw cedar to clad the primary steel moment-frame structure to create a feeling of warmth. The steel was left exposed (including the seismic zone 4 base column connections) in the studio area of the house to celebrate the structure; the color too of the mullions was varied from a champagne gold in the living quarters to black in the work space. The connection to nature the VS1 House enables is unprecedented, especially during inclement weather: the chaos of nature swirls outside while one is completely shielded in glass yet fully engaged in the experience.

VS1 Home Inc was founded in 2018 by facade engineer Franz Safford. The company is based in the Hudson Valley, NY.