Dwell Home Tour: Utah Abode

DWELL HOME TOUR: An Interior Designer’s Utah Abode Blends Mountain Living With Scandinavian Style

Park City Design + Build creates an indoor/outdoor, energy-efficient home for a Danish interior designer and her family.

After searching for many months, Danish interior designer Mette Axboe and her family discovered the perfect location for their new home—10 acres of land set on a gently sloping mountainside with expansive views encompassing Park City’s ski resorts.

When they engaged Park City–based architect Chris Price and his firm Park City Design + Build (PCD+B), they already had a layout of their dream home on paper.

“We wanted something that would fit our lifestyle and family, and cater to frequent (and long-staying) guests from overseas,” says Axboe. “We asked Chris to ‘architect it up’—keeping our layout in mind, and ensuring a good fit with both the site and surrounding area. It was very important for us to design a house that fit the landscape, and not the other way around.”

The design was inspired in part by Salt Lake City’s National History Museum of Utah, which the family deems the most beautiful building in the city.

The building process started with an intense dialogue with the design review board, which took about a year to conclude. “This process is pretty common in neighborhoods in Park City since the town has a very strong mountain vernacular, and modern forms can draw easy critique,” says Price.

The Axboe House is a “study in transparent, indoor/outdoor mountain living.” In line with PCD+B’s design ethos, the home’s energy performance was also of utmost importance, and borrows its efficiency tactics from the European energy standard of Passiv Haus. “Using triple-pane, Zola Thermo Alu75 windows allow us to open the house to maximize the views without massive heat loss,” explains Price. Southern-facing windows let in light and heat in winter, while providing shade in summer.

With R-11 glass standard and R-15 quad glass optional, Thermo Alu75 can be offered in extremely large sizes. It is available as a Tilt & Turn window as well as Lift & Slide, french and entry doors. The frame incorporates a three-chamber thermal break, creating a barrier in between the inside and outside window frames that will reduce thermal transmission and enhance insulating ability. The end result is superior interior comfort and energy savings. Combined with its multiple lock systems and triple air seals, the window exceeds Energy Star requirements by over 50%.

Photographer: Kerri Fukui

Click here to read about the entire home tour on Dwell.

Drone Footage: Renan Ozturk

Park City Design Build is a forward thinking, modern architectural firm based in Park City, Utah that was founded in 2009. We focus our work around intensively site-driven, site-built work.  Each of our projects is rooted in its place, from the social aspect that drives multi-generational goals, to our ecological ethos which aims our projects towards the most carbon efficient designs possible.  We started this studio with the goals of delivering more deliberate, thoughtful designs to the built environment.  Each of our projects is instilled with the place and people that will inhabit it. We come from a master builder mentality, offering our clients a thorough perspective of the entire building experience. Our work has grown over the years from single family to multi-family, commercial and craft-making.  Our aim is to deliver the highest quality, most efficient and economical projects as we can.

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