In doing so, Duff, also the board chair at Sonoma’s di Rosa art gallery and grounds, has become a proponent of unusual residential and commercial modern projects that close the gap between design and art.
For their seven-acre California outpost, amid a vineyard and a large organic vegetable garden dotted with some of their burgeoning collection, including sculpture by the likes of British sculptor Richard Long and Korean designer Lee Hun Chung, they asked for a modest dining pavilion, within sight of the main house but closer to the vines, where they could entertain guests.
Requiring only a minimalist aesthetic and the flexibility to use the party venue for large or small gatherings, they opted for a slatted wood barn that could be thrown open or kept closed depending on the crowd size and the weather.
Duff relocated the historic archetypal building to its current site, completely restored it and inserted two rectangular, steelframed, mirror-clad pavilions inside. One is a state-of-the-art catering kitchen and the other an exercise gym.
The mirrored pavilions are spaced far enough apart to make room between them for a very large dining table by New York’s BDDW. Oversize hollow fiberglass lanterns by Alan Knight hover overhead, creating a focal point for the mostly muted palette of grays inside, including bleached rift-sawn oak for the service bar (hidden behind sliding doors when not in use) and new stained wood rafters that were added in conjunction with the steel structure to shore up the metal roof.
The gym, clad in two-way mirrors (transparent from the darkened side), is as reflective as its twin pavilion, yet allows users inside it to look out at views during the day; at night it becomes a kind of see-through lantern when lighted inside.
In an effortlessly sculptural way, this reimagined barn engages the historic, ecological and formal character of its surroundings while poetically integrating patterns, light and views. “Given the constraints an architect needs to contend with, it’s challenging to be artful with buildings,” Duff says, but this one “is as close to art as any building I’ve ever done.”