Concord House plays on the tension between familiarity and reinvention. Here, conventional materials feel newly observed through proportion, repetition and assembly. Natural stone bricks are what the designer calls the project’s “grounding character”, a calm counterpoint to the more expressive materials used elsewhere. They form a protective shell to the street, then move through the central courtyard and into richly layered interiors. The same stone returns again and again, each time in a different form, linking one space to the next like a thread of memory.
When Lise Taylor of Designists began work on this home, she thought about creating a material language built on recurrence. Stone, timber, glass and metal feature throughout. Daly stone bricks lead the palette, moving from façade to courtyard to interior. Outside, they wrap the curved corners and give the street frontage a measured cadence. “We were particularly drawn to the elongated brick format and laid it in a vertical offset pattern, creating a subtle rhythm that rewards attention over time,” Lise says. “It is one of those details most people can’t quite explain yet instinctively feel.”
Blending natural limestone with travertine, Daly ranges in hues from light beige to cream. Each piece is sandblasted by hand and made to age gracefully. As light and shadow move across the surface through the day, the tonal shifts, mineral markings and irregularities in the stone come to life, qualities no manufactured product could convincingly imitate. “Those small inconsistencies stop the architecture from feeling overly resolved,” says Lise. “The building feels composed and dynamic, never sterile.”
In the courtyard, the home’s theatrical social hub, Daly takes on a more expressive role. The bricks fan out in a radiating pattern to frame round windows, then wrap a sunken seat beside the pool. Along its edges they meet Linton limestone, creating a quiet interplay of pattern and texture.
“We were particularly drawn to the elongated brick format...equally important were the tonal shifts, mineral markings and irregularities of each brick, which no manufactured product could convincingly imitate.”
– Lise Taylor
Inside, the mood softens. Daly shapes the double-sided fireplace, drawing the living spaces around it, then rises through the gallery wall and stairwell. “The stone has that sense of quiet permanence, but as it moves through the house it is experienced in a unique way each time,” Lise says.
Set on a corner site and exposed on two sides, Concord House turns its gaze inward. To the street, Daly bricks give the home a fortress-like sense of privacy, while life gathers in the courtyard and interiors within. Over time, the stone will take on the imprint of everyday life, and the home will become what it set out to be, a place that feels as though it has always been there.
“Daly has that sense of quiet permanence, but as it moves through the house it is experienced in a unique way each time.”
– Lise Taylor
