George Gibbs Architect

Shaw Island Retreat House

San Juan Archipelago, Washington
Private Residence + Retreat
2025

This project explores the relationship between architecture, landscape, and seasonal occupation within an abandoned orchard on Shaw Island. The project was developed in close collaboration with the client, balancing retreat, daily living, and long-term adaptability.

Conceived as both a private residence and a place for retreat, the building is organized as a protective enclosure set within an open field. Its form establishes a clear boundary—framing outward views to pasture and forest while creating a more intimate, sheltered interior world.

At its center, a courtyard mediates between building and landscape. In the summer, the house opens fully to this space, allowing daily life to extend outward into light, air, and vegetation. In winter, the enclosure closes, and the relationship shifts—views are held at a distance, and the architecture becomes a place of refuge and concentration.

Light is treated as a primary material, shaping space through orientation, aperture, and seasonal variation. The project is conceived as an architecture that unfolds over time—defined as much by shadow, weather, and use as by form.