Ponderosa Bend is a new Oregon house in the Pacific Northwest, the work of developer Malaspina Design. It is the first in a series of homes being built in the Oregon locality of Bend, designed by the Spanish firm of FRPO (Fernando Rodríguez and Pablo Oriol).
An award-winning Oregon house
The house, which recently won the Luis M Mansilla Award at the 2023 COAM Awards, is one of a series of projects being built in the area, with the intention of ‘blending Pacific Northwest dream home aesthetics with modern architecture’, with the latter sourced from Europe wherever possible.
FRPO’s first structure has made a mark, a single-storey courtyard house that wraps its asymmetric form around an existing tree, with a series of covered terraces accessed from many of the key rooms. The project makes ambitious use of new materials, from microcement renders to aluminium panels, with large-scale glulam wooden beams used to support the roof structure.
The ponderosa tree at the heart of the structure gives the house its name. One section of the circular plan is made up of the car port, store and a self-contained study/guest room. To the left of the car port is the main entrance, which opens onto the kitchen diner, and then clockwise round to the living space, bracketed by external decks and with glass walls on each side.
A glazed corridor overlooking the internal courtyard leads to the generous main bedroom suite, with its internal courtyard and large dressing room, and then on round to a family room and two more ensuite bedrooms.
The grey aluminium cladding is mirrored by the microcement concrete flooring, while the large glulam beams and wooden ceiling cladding is left exposed to provide a warm contrast. As one progresses through the space there are subtle level changes accompanying the well-defined geometry, shifting viewing angles out and across the house to the garden and landscape.
Further houses are planned on the site, building on the learnings of this first property. Each has a highly individual design to make the most of the views and topography.
