On a steamy July morning, the Seattle-based architect Tom Kundig stood in the grand entrance hall of the White House, waiting to be honored by First Lady Laura Bush for receiving this year's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for architecture. (The actual prize will be bestowed in New York in October.) Amid the swirl of dignitaries, fellow honorees, and guests (including his wife, Jeannie), a well-wisher remarked to Kundig that he might want to take a shot at a modest redesign of the premises: something along the lines of a simple, hand-operated device — say, a flywheel — that would allow the entire 170-foot front façade of America's most famous residence to pivot up and open, letting in breezes and unfiltered light.
Kundig, with characteristic modesty, laughed the suggestion off. But if anyone could tackle such a daredevil challenge, it's him. At the Pioneer Square office of his firm, Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen, he rigged up a three-ton skylight that lifts open with a gentle tweak of a small disk lever to give his 87 workmates a bit of fresh air. The six-ton glass-and-steel window at his Chicken Point Cabin in Idaho is operated by an elaborate mechanism that a grade-schooler can easily handle. And at the Delta Shelter — an American Institute of Architects award–winning weekend getaway in the aspen forest surrounding Mazama, Washington — massive rolling shutters open and close with a turn of a four-foot handwheel.
"I just saw the intersection between the poetic and the functional," the still-boyish 54-year-old says of the origin of these signature "gizmos," which invite a level of hands-on participation that is exceedingly rare in contemporary — or, really, any — architecture. (Many of them are executed in collaboration with Kundig's engineer of choice, Phil Turner.) But his houses, which are quickly becoming recognized as modern-day classics, are no mere Rube Goldberg machines. They're luminous presences, often set in spectacular environments (he's now at work on projects in Hawaii and Alaska) and turned out in cast concrete the color of moondust and untreated steel as richly patinated as any Richard Serra sculpture. Brute strength and tactile refinement are held in perfect equilibrium, which is no surprise: Kundig is an avid alpine climber (not to mention heli-skier and Ducati nut), so he knows something about risk-taking, durability, and the beauty of perfect execution. "I'm just doing what I have to do for whatever reason," he says of this athletic approach to craft, a far cry from prevailing digital trends in architecture. "It's my instinct, and hopefully, I can make something magic out of it."
