PROJECT  Flint Hill

ARCHITECT  Gardner Architects LLC

LOCATION  Flint Hill, Virginia, US​

PROJECT COMPLETION DATE  10/2/2023

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN TEAM  Amy E Gardner FAIA LEED-AP, Principal. Brittany L Williams AIA LEED-AP, Project Architect.
OWNER/CLIENT 
CONTRACTOR/CONSTRUCTION MANAGER  Willoughby
PHOTOGRAPHER  John Cole Photography
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Gregg Bleam Landscape Architect
CIVIL ENGINEER Dice Engineering, PLC
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER  Cobb Architectural Engineers (formerly 1200 Architectural Engineers)
MECHANICAL ENGINEER  Josh Catlett PE
ELECTRICAL ENGINEER 
CONSULTANT  Emily Hagen Photography
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SUMMARY DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT  
Located in Virginia’s northern Piedmont, Rappahannock County descends from the Blue Ridge south to the rolling hills of Culpeper and Madison. The county retains its agricultural and rural origins and is home to an International Dark-Sky Park, one of the last places on the East Coast with views of the Milky Way. Flint Hill, the project site, inherits Rappahannock’s undulating foothills, clear skies, and sprawling vistas. The client’s agenda: a sustainably-minded house with living and sleeping wings, vegetable and flower gardens, interior and exterior spaces for frequent family visitors and guests to gather, a year-round pool, a bocce court, and a carport, located strategically within the 64 acre site. The house borrows forms from local farm outbuildings. Oriented to capture light and breeze, the home’s two wings follow the topography and share views of the adjacent meadows and distant mountains. Connections between the home’s interior and exterior spaces allow easy movement and continuous engagement with the site.

Design for Integration, Wellbeing, and Discovery
• Flint Hill embraces the site, the house integrated with the site’s ridge, forming a natural threshold to the “bowl” and an existing rubble stone wall. Layers step up from the approach and then down to the meadow below, engaging the north-south layers of the house precinct.

• Encouraging an active lifestyle, the house enables a daily ritual that begins and ends in the garden, with excursions for hiking, bird-watching, and regular maintenance of the 64 acre site.
• The house is a home base, supporting the client’s program of conservation and restoration of habitat across the broader site.

• The design expresses the client’s goals for a sustainable home, with strategies for capturing daylight and natural prevailing wind, the benefits of passive solar and a high-performance building envelope, water-efficient irrigation systems using on-site sources, solar PV systems, and electric lighting managed along Dark Sky best practices.

Design for Energy and Resources
• Though oriented primarily to the west, the design achieves a HERS rating of 21, through a vapor- managed high performing envelope, high-efficiency windows and doors, balanced ventilation with an ERV, a heat-pump water heater, an 8kW photovoltaic system, motorized shading, energy-star appliances.

• Capitalizing on interconnectedness, the design provides comfort outside bounds of the ASHRAE psychrometric chart by controlling humidity, providing low-to-high cross-ventilation from the terrace/meadow to clerestory windows, and motorized exterior roller shades. Passive strategies, such as capturing low afternoon winter sun with tiled floor mass, further motivate the design.

• A deep-roofed terrace-porch, creating an outdoor room and a protective layer to the living spaces within, allows for a sustainable and resilient design that preserves the views and conforms to the site topography. The roof overhang incorporates built-in exterior motorized shades, providing shelter in the summer while allowing the benefit of the low winter sun.

• The house is designed to be economical to build and maintain, through the use of simple, efficient forms and materials, such as open-sided rectangular forms with mono-pitch shed roofs that echo the local farm culture.

JURY COMMENTS (If applicable)

An elegant, restrained palette design that respects its rural context. The transparent living room and timber-clad annex create a harmonious relationship with the surrounding meadows, while the thoughtful use of sustainable materials creates a signature, timeless architecture.

IMAGES (Captions and Photographer Credit)
1. Terrace view over wildflower meadow - John Cole Photography
2. Terrace view over wildflower meadow - John Cole Photography
3. Bedroom view over wildflower meadow - John Cole Photography
4. View over Flint Hill landscape - John Cole Photography
5. View over terrace, wildflower meadow, and adjacent carport, pool and bocce court - John Cole Photography
6. Screen Porch - John Cole Photography
7. The house is a porch - John Cole Photography
8. Flint Hill Kitchen - John Cole Photography