Level One
stats:
Location:
Boulder, Colorado
Square Footage:
7,100 S. F.
Construction Date:
Early 2023
The Level One Residence by F9 Productions is perched on a steep half-acre site at the base of Boulder’s iconic Flatirons, the Level One Residence by F9 Productions is a 5,620-square-foot custom home completed in early 2023 for a family of four. This five-bedroom dwelling fuses technical precision, energy efficiency, and whimsical family-oriented design, creating a luminous sanctuary that celebrates natural light, play, and connection to the rugged Colorado landscape.
The design objectives stemmed from the clients’ desire for a home that prioritized togetherness while accommodating distinct public and private zones. Inspired by F9’s book The Creativity Code, the architects engaged in a collaborative process, presenting an initial concept that resonated immediately: a transparent, light-filled structure emphasizing family dynamics. The house is organized into interconnected spaces, with a central vertical core: featuring stairs, a playful slide, and a skylight. Linking spaces and reinforcing themes of fun and illumination.
The public wing centers on an expansive kitchen island that anchors the living, dining, and recreational areas, including an indoor pool, trampoline zone, and steam/sauna room. Large sliding glass doors dissolve boundaries between interior and exterior, merging the kitchen, pool, and rear deck into a seamless gathering space.
The private wing houses bedrooms, an office, laundry, and bathrooms, with hallways ending in full-height glazing to maximize views and minimize dead ends. Exposed structural elements, flush details, and LED accents enhance the sense of openness and sophistication.
This engineered “tree” of a house conceals its rigor beneath effortless transparency, transforming domestic life into shared delight amid Boulder’s challenging terrain.
Pragmatically, the residence is conceived in three sections. The lowest level, referred to as the “service floor” or walkout basement, is a robust concrete-encased podium supported by over 70 deep caissons (pylons extending 30 feet into the ground) to stabilize the steep site. This foundation houses the garage, mechanical systems (including those for the indoor pool), a flexible multipurpose space (adaptable for storage, workouts, or play with a rock climbing wall), and a bathroom. Above this engineered base sits the primary living volume: a lightweight, transparent “glass lantern” superstructure framed by a substantial steel skeleton — incorporating roughly a quarter-mile of steel, far exceeding typical residential applications. This steel framework supports over 3,000 square feet of triple-pane glazing (with an effective R-10 insulation value), enabling panoramic, nearly 360-degree views of Boulder and the Flatirons while flooding the interiors with natural light.
The public heart, kitchen, living, and dining areas, opens expansively under a dramatically sloped, 12-foot-tall ceiling, creating a seamless, light-drenched gathering space. Included in this wing is, an indoor pool, trampoline area, and steam/sauna room. The kitchen is uniquely designed as an island to facility is central role as a gathering space between the pool, rear deck, dining room, and trampoline. Large sliding glass doors between the pool, exterior deck, and kitchen combine these spaces to one.
Flanking the central stair is the private wing: one dedicated to four bedrooms, an office, laundry room, and restrooms. Secondary spaces benefit from the overarching theme of light. The bedroom hallways terminate in full-height glazing rather than dead-end walls, and minimal corridors are treated with flush steel reveals, flush outlets and lighting controls, inset baseboards accented by soft LED lighting, and exposed structural elements highlighted with glowing ambiance light after dark.
