The Cocoon: A Vacation Home Ideal for Rebirth

A cocoon combines many traits we look for in good architecture. It protects us from the elements to create a comfortable home, while adding privacy in a graceful and appealing design. It keeps the good in and the bad out, and does it beautifully.

A Long Island, NY, vacation cottage aptly named “The Cocoon” does all of this and more. The organically shaped structure sits within a naturally landscaped property and brings all the comforts of home. Rounded walls cradle and provide visual and physical warmth, while glass opens the home to the beauty, breezes and scents of the surrounding nature.

Like many natural forms, the design of this residence has more to it than first appears. This LEED-certified home is designed to work closely with nature. It uses organic shapes, sustainable construction and a combination of Passive House principles and environmental technology to make the most of its surroundings while also giving back.

Architect Nina Edwards Anker designed the vacation cottage for herself and her family. She is the founding member of the nonprofit urban design company Terreform ONE, and has held teaching positions at schools including Sotheby’s Institute, Oslo School of Architecture and the Pratt Institute. She and her company NEA Studio are known for award-winning furniture and lighting products that showcase her passion for sustainable design and biomorphic design principles. In 2015 her Landscape Sofa won the Good Design Award from The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. Her 3D-printed solar Latitude Light won the 2017 A’ Design Award and the 2018 Made in NYC Award.

Nina and her studio experiment with forms, new ideas and manufacturing processes that support sustainable living. When it was time to design her home, she put all these practices into play.

In front of the energy-efficient fireplace sits Nina’s Beanie Sofa, a bean bag design composed of natural materials.

The layout is designed to fit the requirements of the lot. The L-shaped home and 1,730-square-foot footprint work with the land and its surroundings, maintaining a 150-foot clearance from the area’s wetlands and a 35-foot clearance from neighboring properties. With close neighbors to the north and west, and views and cool ocean breezes to the south and east, the home is designed to bring privacy while taking full advantage of its natural conditions.

Biomorphic design is used throughout, evoking shapes and patterns found in nature and living organisms. This design principle is also shown in her furniture designs, such as her Beanie Sofa in the living room and her Algae Lamps above the dining table. Nina worked with Licciardi Builders, engineering firm LaufsED and prefabrication company Unalam to bring her concept to life. The rounded walls bring privacy on the north and west, clad in cedar shingles that blend in with the look of the historic neighborhood. Part cocoon, part wave-shaped, the large curves are both graceful and welcoming, inviting interaction as if it were a flowing landscape or a rounded Richard Serra sculpture.

The walls make a grand statement in the open floor plan and are kept clean by setting the entranceway and fireplace hearth outside the interior frame. Along the southern side, the design is sliced and angled to accommodate large windows, sliding glass doors and skylights that work together to maximize views of nature, invite ocean breezes and bathe the home in light.

Circular Benefits of Round Design

There are added benefits found in the round design and methods of construction. Passive and sustainable design principles work together, efficiently circulating air and regulating temperatures for comfortable living. The home uses nature to its advantage while benefiting the environment with specialized LEED construction.

Rather than use steel to create the frame, Nina opted for timber to maintain lower carbon emissions and maintain a more natural environment for living and breathing. The rounded shape allows for high 16-foot ceilings, while using between 15% and 20% less material on the walls, floor and roof than standard rectangular buildings with equal square footage.

The round design also channels rainwater into the cistern that, in turn, waters the landscaping.

Ovoid designs such as this have other unique benefits. Like circular structures such as Mongolian yurts and Navajo hogans, they make homes energy efficient and comfortable. The cocoon shape works with the glass and nature to create an environment that is not too hot and not too cold, but just right.

In cooler months, sunlight warms the walls along the north and west, heating the home while meeting cooler air from the windows for balanced temperature regulation. The curved walls also work to channel temperature and airflow. The high ceiling takes heat up and away, curving warm air and guiding it to glass skylights, which cool it, bringing it down again. As the air continues to rise and fall, it acts as natural air conditioning. The rounded shape also moves fresh air and breezes easily throughout the home. In times of the year when weather is particularly cold, the energy-efficient fireplace brings all the needed warmth.

Sight and Sound

Another important trait for creating a peaceful living experience is sound control. Nina worked with Obelisk Consulting to reduce interior and exterior sound. Inside, sound softens while travelling along the rounded walls, making life more comfortable while resting, speaking with friends or listening to music. On the exterior, the curved wall acts much like an aerodynamic structure in a wind tunnel, guiding sound around it rather than against it.

Visually, the round shape creates the feeling of being enveloped in visual warmth. The softness of white walls also acts like a projector of colors, lines and shadows, beautifully displaying, stretching and moving them for an inviting show.

The Clear Benefits of Glass

Curved walls are only part of the home’s story. Glass along the southern side is an important element for light, temperature and mood.

The visual benefits of glass are used to their fullest, letting in the expansive beauty of surrounding nature. The glass also helps with temperature regulation due to its positioning with the sun. In colder months, sunlight warms the glass and surrounding walls to create passive heat gain. The skylights help maximize the amount of light and warmth entering the home from fall to spring. On warm summer days, the wide sliding glass doors open to allow in ocean air that is further cooled while passing over the water from the nearby cistern. On hot days, shades and large swaths of drapery reduce solar heat gain by 50%.

In the hallway leading to the bedrooms, the glass brings visual and emotional comfort. The colored skylights have their history in Goethe color theory that associates colors with feelings and emotions. For the home, the darker vermillion red near the master bedroom represents sunset and rest, while the deep yellow near the living room represents energy and activity.

Sunlight interacts with the skylights, which lights the floor and surrounding white walls and brings about delicious reflections and colors that create an engaging dance and warm interaction. These reflections are always in motion, constantly shifting, expanding and contracting based on the positioning of the sun, moving along the curved and straight walls like hands on a biorhythmic clock.

Tight Construction

Along with natural temperature regulation from the glass and walls, the house uses ultra-tight construction to allow simple air handlers to heat and cool the home. Nina wanted to avoid the blasts of cold air from air conditioning in the summer and dry air from heating during the winter. This meant blending heating and cooling strategies and controlling humidity levels through Passive House principles. She worked with mechanical engineer Jordan Goldman from Zero Energy Design, opting away from the large HVAC systems required in the leaky homes in the surrounding humid continental climate. A minimally designed system was installed in ultra-tight, well-insulated construction for more effective ventilation and air channeling while controlling humidity levels. Plants are also strategically used for stability.

Cool, Clear Water

Outside the home, water brings a blend of aesthetic, environmental and comfort benefits. Rainwater is collected in the cistern and used for watering the landscaping, while also further cooling the ocean breezes in the summertime. The cistern and reflecting pool emulate the rounded design of the home, running parallel to the glass and mirroring the design as if the home were sliced downward and opened. The water softens the look of the structure, tying together the architecture and nature through reflections off the water and nearby glass, while blurring the lines between the interior and exterior. The water also brings light into the home, while casting reflections and powering Nina’s Solar Chandelier.

Beyond the water sits an undisturbed landscape that provides plenty of room to interact with nature while creating attractive views from the inside, where Nina and her children enjoy all the comforts of home.

With all these internal and external traits working together, this vacation home’s blend of natural and sustainable design works with its surroundings to create an ultra-balanced environment. It brings tranquil comfort while letting the homeowners delight in all the senses. Like a cocoon itself, this home is made to reenergize—and does it in style.