Houzz Tour: Arizona's Dialogue House Has Something New to Say
Get in on the conversation about this minimalist masterpiece in the Phoenix desert, remodeled by its original award-winning architect
John Hill
9 May 2013
Houzz Contributor. I am an architect and writer living in New York City. I have Bachelor of Architecture and Master in Urban Planning degrees, and over ten years experience in architectural practice, split between Chicago and NYC. Currently I'm focused on writing and online pursuits. My daily blog can be found at http://archidose.blogspot.com
Houzz Contributor. I am an architect and writer living in New York City. I have Bachelor... More
The story of the Dialogue House in Phoenix spans a decade and a half. Architect Wendell Burnette designed the house in the late 1990s, earning a prestigious Progressive Architecture Award in 1999. It was built for one client but fell into disrepair. The new owners, the Hylands, bought the house in 2010 when they were newly engaged and hired Burnette to help fix it up and complete the vision he had started years before. The result is a minimalist masterpiece that stands out in its desert setting.
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Thomas and Laura Hyland
Location: Phoenix
Size: 2,545 square feet; 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
That's interesting: The house's name refers to the dialogue between the house and the pool; the former is extroverted and the latter is introverted.
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Thomas and Laura Hyland
Location: Phoenix
Size: 2,545 square feet; 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
That's interesting: The house's name refers to the dialogue between the house and the pool; the former is extroverted and the latter is introverted.
The house sits on a corner lot at the base of Echo Mountain, among some fairly unremarkable houses from the 1950s and '60s. It has two stories and sits on the high side of the property; there are steps down to the pool, from which we are looking here. The top-floor living area sits behind a huge picture window that looks to the south and distant views of downtown Phoenix and the Sierra Estrella mountain range.
Here is a view from the living area and its terrace. The glow of Phoenix is undeniable, but the pool is its own attraction. From this view we get an idea of the dialogue the house and pool have: the former looks out to the expanse of the mountains and desert urbanity, while the tall walls of the latter block out the same and put the focus, as we'll see, on the sky.
While this house is on the south side of the mountain, Burnette's own house (completed in 1995) is nearby, on the north side of the mountain. Burnette articulated his own split-level house as two parallel concrete-block walls with glazed ends and an entry court in the middle of the plan. A similar tactic obviously occurs in the Dialogue House's oversize picture window. A small courtyard also is provided on the west side of the house, behind the wall on the left here.
When the Hylands purchased the house, the stucco exterior was so far gone that it needed to be completely replaced. Before that the stucco was finished a deep red, sitting above the dark walls of the ground floor. (See many photos of the house in its earlier days here.) But in the house's transformation, Burnette made the stucco darker and more varied, less even across its surface. The effect is mottled, like the desert earth of the landscape. It also sets up a distinction between the dark exterior and light interior, a noticeable trend.
One of the most interesting aspects of Burnette's design is the way he used site walls to define outdoor spaces and create a sense of enclosure on the expansive hillside. Walls radiate from the two-story rectangular plan: east to the driveway, south to the pool and west to the courtyard. Here we are situated along the wall on the east, looking toward an exterior stair that ascends to the courtyard on the other side of the house.
But the greatest definition happens in the pool, where 13-foot-high whitewashed walls frame the sky. Small squares are cut into the walls just above grade, so on the pool side they are positioned a couple feet above the water. These openings add a secondary light source to the outdoor room, a speckled band that glows at certain times of the day and glows from the inside out at night.
Storage was pushed to the solid side walls to keep the interior open. In this view we're looking from the kitchen to the living area and access to the courtyard on the west side of the house. The loft-like master bedroom is beyond the wall on the right, and on the left is the large picture window.
In this last view we're looking 180 degrees from the previous view, toward the one-wall kitchen that follows the idea of perimeter storage. The low wall on the left is the master bedroom, with the tall walls housing the master bath (the other two baths and bedrooms are downstairs). In this view we see how well the storage and open-plan concept work, but also how the terrace helps to shade the interior and its generous glass wall capturing stunning desert views.
Builder: The Construction Zone
Photographs: Bill Timmerman
Builder: The Construction Zone
Photographs: Bill Timmerman
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unfortunately this is the problem with most of John Hills articles, no disrespect John but some wider pic's of the whole houses would be great.
Perhaps as more architects set up profiles on Houzz and realize the focus of the site they'll increase the number of photos describing interior spaces.