I find the idea behind Jerry Sohn’s desert garden rooms unbelievably inspiring. Wanting a place in the vast landscape of the Mojave Desert (where he owns a small house), he commissioned Architect Arata Isozaki to create rooms in this place — one for each season.
Jerry likes to sleep outdoors with his family and enjoy the night sky and coolness of the evenings in the desert. So the project started with the idea of creating a place where they could enjoy the landscape but be up and away from snakes and other wildlife. What evolved was three ‘rooms’, one each, for Summer and Winter, and then a Third to enjoy the Spring and Autumn seasons.
Each of the ‘rooms’ is designed to highlight the Sun and Moon at that time of the year, as well provide the best accomodation for the season. The winter room is enclosed in glass to protect from the elements and the summer room is a beautiful and sculptural open concrete platform.
In addition to the rooms, the garden has other artistic installations (Jerry is an art Collector) — this one, Circle of Japanese Fishing Floats by Richard Long is my favorite.
Read more about the design here: Domus.