Specht Architects orients recessed New Mexico house towards desert vistas

Glazing at this concrete Santa Fe home by American studio Specht Architects offers expansive views of distant mountains, while casting shadow patterns across interior walls.

The Sundial House is situated on landscape characteristic of northern New Mexico towns – undulating, arid terrain reaching toward nearby mountains.

To comply with the region’s height restrictions for buildings, the architects built the home

on a sunken plane. From the road, a slabbed walkway leads past a terrace and down a staircase to a courtyard entry.

Both levelled areas have gardens that spread up to the facade’s western limit. Shrubs planted in the higher terrace balance the tall trees rising above from the lower enclosure.