34 DIGS.NET
| 4.8.2022
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P R O F I L E | C R A I G S T E E LY
ITH PAM AND PAUL'S HOUSE, an unambiguously work of modern
architecture in Cupertino, California, architect Craig Steely
is in his element—at the intersection between the natural
and built environments. "I'm interested in the dialogue
between man-made forms and natural forms, in creating
spaces in nature," says the architect, who grew up in the
California mountains. He made stuff, observed things, improvised.
"Some of my earliest memories of space were formed around
things I discovered outside; things in nature, like the way a path
wound between two rocks or how a circle of pine trees created
a room. I felt these reverences or feelings of architecture before
I even knew what architecture was!" Steely's noticing of these
spaces grew into creating these spaces, "first in a tree, or stacking
rocks, or out of driftwood on a beach" and "later in buildings that
have a strong reverence for nature without trying to copy it."
These buildings form a compelling and ambitious body of work
that includes Steely's Lavaflow series of Hawaii homes, a boxy
houseboat in Sausalito, and a pair of pyramid-shaped towers
in the jungle cliffs of Sayulita, Mexico. Given the conceptual
nature of his work, it's not surprising that Steely is a draw in
Silicon Valley, where he designed a seemingly roofless house
W