Todd Hido -photographer

Fernau & Hartman-architect

"Straw bales are sort of like Legos--they're big blocks--and if you think you can build a house using only Legos, it's going to look as blocky as a Lego house," says Richard Fernau. Suffice it to say that the house designed by Fernau and Hartman on a West Marin hillside does not look like a Lego house. The clients were interested in building with straw bales because doing so would be ecologically sensitive and because they were attracted to the old-fashioned thickness straw bales provide. But Fernau points out that although thick walls (and the small windows that often accompany them) make sense in places like Crete, where the sun can be overwhelming and darkness is a welcome refuge, they're not as well suited to Northern California, where the weather isn't as predictable.

To avoid the pitfalls of blockiness and limited light, the architects decided to use straw-bale construction only on the side of the house that faces the road and to have thin, glassy walls looking out to the garden and tree canopy. In plan, the building is a flattened and elongated M- shape that snakes down the hillside. Parts of the house are connected loosely, or not at all. Both bedrooms are separate from the main body of the house, making the conceit of an outdoor room quite literal. "Remember the corridor between your bedroom and your parents'?" Fernau asks. "Here it vanishes altogether to become the outside space between the two bedroom cabins."