A California Retreat Has Walls Made Out of the Beach

Brian Libby
·1 min read
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Field Architects harvested this sandcastle’s site to create panels that match the sparkling Carmel coast.

The home is built into its grassy-dune landscape (icluding a day-lit lower level) yet still appears to float over its terrain.
The home is built into its grassy-dune landscape (icluding a day-lit lower level) yet still appears to float over its terrain.

There’s nowhere quite like Carmel-by-the-Sea on California’s Monterey Peninsula, with its wind-swept cypress trees and grassy dunes. The White Sands residence, built paces from the water, embraces it fully. But you don’t have to look outside to experience the area’s signature quartz-rich, milky-toned beaches for which the house is named.

Glass walls wrap the home's western, ocean-facing side, with large glass pieces framed in the same black steel as the adjacent rammed-earth wall panels.
Glass walls wrap the home's western, ocean-facing side, with large glass pieces framed in the same black steel as the adjacent rammed-earth wall panels.

Forming the spine of the glass-wrapped home is a long wall clad with rammed-earth panels, fabricated with sand harvested from the building site. "We were looking for a way to bring the tactility and the sensory quality of the beach into the house so that we didn’t feel like we were keeping the beach out, but rather threading it throughout," explains architect Jess Field, cofounder of Berkeley, California, firm Field Architecture with his father, Stan. "Everything else cues off of that."

Before designing the retreat, the father and son noticed that many nearby houses were oriented east toward the street and treated the shore like a neglected backyard. But knowing that the owners, a family with three children and two dogs, eventually wanted to live here full time, creating a stronger connection with the beach felt important.

Light and shadows move across the rammed-earth wall panels throughout the day, creating a radiant heat source welcomed in this cool, often-windy Carmel microclimate.
Light and shadows move across the rammed-earth wall panels throughout the day, creating a radiant heat source welcomed in this cool, often-windy Carmel microclimate.
The architects envisioned entry-facing and beach-front sides like an analog camera's viewfinder and wide-angle lens, with the rammed-earth-clad central interior wall leading the way.
The architects envisioned entry-facing and beach-front sides like an analog camera's viewfinder and wide-angle lens, with the rammed-earth-clad central interior wall leading the way.

See the full story on Dwell.com: A California Retreat Has Walls Made Out of the Beach
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