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Set against the rugged backdrop of West Texas, this renovation transforms a simple home into a serene retreat immersed in mountain and sky. Expansive glazing captures shifting light and distant peaks, while covered outdoor spaces invite connection to the land’s quiet rhythms. Warm wood ceilings and natural stone finishes echo the desert palette, creating a refuge for reflection and renewal. Designed as an escape from the city, the home celebrates its setting while offering a place to slow down, breathe deeply, and watch the horizon fade into starlit night.

Location

Alpine, Texas

Design Team

Joe Rivers and Kevin Barden

Renderings

WAL Studio

Typology

Residential

Date

2017

Process

Explore

Gulf Coast Beach House

Set along the Gulf Coast shoreline, this beach house embraces coastal living with expansive decks, open interiors, and uninterrupted ocean views. Light-filled rooms flow seamlessly to generous outdoor spaces, inviting breezes and sunlight into daily life. A soft, natural palette and durable coastal materials create a relaxed yet refined retreat, perfect for both quiet mornings and lively gatherings by the water.

Heath West

Art and Design

In this episode, our resident architects Joe Rivers and Kevin Barden visit with Heath West, a painter from Los Angeles, California. Heath is painter with an extensive background in architecture, a subject he pursued and worked in professionally for several years before returning to his original love of art and painting. Before his recent relocation from Houston, Texas to Los Angeles, California, Heath sat down with Kevin and Joe to discuss the influence of architecture in his work and his particular approach to painting.

Ethos

Writing

In an essay entitled The Hedgehog and the Fox, Isaiah Berlin quotes the Greek poet Archilochus, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing” (Berlin 7). The essay was written as a commentary on Leo Tolstoy’s view of history, however, the text can offer an understanding for how one might practice architecture as well. For us, this understanding reveals itself in perceiving the environment as a fox and believing in it as a hedgehog.