Client: Stewart and Colette Fahmy
Project Type: private residence
Program: 4,800 gross sq. ft.; 4,000 sq. ft. finished cellar.
Project Schedule: Design: 2007-08, construction: 2009
Project Team: Preston Scott Cohen (Design); Gilles Quintal (Project Architect); Bohseung Kong (project assistant); Nancy Mendoza (model)
Consultants: Lea and Blaze Engineering, Inc., Peter Carlino (Civil Engineering); UPP Geotechnology, Inc., R. Rexford (Geotechnical Engineering); Ray Morneau (Arborist); Richard Wist (Landscape Design).

The Fahmy House is designed in accordance with highly restrictive managed growth and environmental guidelines for Los Gatos hillside developments. Because the site is so steeply sloped, it can only accept a house no greater than 4,800 square feet of gross living space. Yet the client desires a house comparable in scope to the significantly larger neighboring houses that were built just prior to the institution of the hillside guidelines. The primary goal of the proposal is to exceed the maximum allowable square footage by deploying cellar space in such a way that it becomes viable living space while limiting the environmental impact on the site. The house was placed on the site with the intention to save most of the healthiest existing live oak trees and to avoid the need for an extensive driveway. The floor plan, in the shape of a V, is designed to provide ample natural daylighting into all the living spaces of the house as it allows all the rooms to be only one room wide. Half the rooms are underground, thus reducing exterior wall exposure which produces a passive energy-saving strategy. A low-velocity house fan uses the central staircase in the summer to cool the upper floors and, during the winter, to spread the heat from the radiant heated floor. Sustainable building products, such as concrete with a minimum 25% fly ash content, engineered lumber, FSC certified wood products and low VOC products, will further minimize the environmental impact of the project.