Refined Retreat – North Salem Farm by Worrell Yeung
Nestled into its rural upstate New York locale, North Salem Farm repurposes and redefines its presence on site through the formation of a series of crisp gable forms. Worrell Yeung adopts an approach that sees working and living spaces harmoniously coexist, elevating the overall structure through considered refinement.
Restful and calmly responding to the surrounding landscape, North Salem Farm is a considered renovation of the established residence. The abundant greenery provides the ideal boundary within which the home feels like its own destination – an ultimate reprieve from city life. To emphasise a sense of place and anchor the forms, each becomes a contemporary interpretation of a traditional silhouette seen within similar rural areas. Through a crafted approach, however, the quality and attuned attention to detailing ensures the human interaction with the building is meaningful. Worrell Yeung designs a thoughtful arrangement of forms among the existing natural elements to compose moments of retreat and togetherness.
As numerous outlooks exist within the home, vistas have been considered and reworked to ensure the landscape and the architecture work in balanced harmony. As occupants enter across the crunching gravel of the entrance court and pass around an established magnolia tree, the tone for the home is immediately felt. Through varying gabled forms, each with an expressed internal timber-lined ceiling that stretches the perception of spaces upward, there is a protective and transportive quality to the residence. A restrained palette that connects to nature through texture and tone subtly adds moments of intrigue amid an overall tranquillity.
With an existing dairy barn now taking shape as the main residence, traditional American barn-style architecture is heavily celebrated. Cloaked in dark metal sheeting, each form on site features defining linear edges. By leaving significant structural elements exposed and electing to cleanly plaster the walls in painted sheeting, there is an intentional hierarchy created for the eye to follow as one moves through the forms. The planning is steeped in an openness that extends out into the landscape, with more quieter moments tucked away as needed.
Through a focus on simplicity and injecting the illusion of time slowing when inside, North Salem Farm becomes a place of reset. Worrell Yeung adopts an attentive fastidiousness to allow the beauty and layers of the surrounding natural elements to be celebrated and encircle the home.
