ALL ARCHITECTURE FASHION GRAPHIC LITERATURE RESEARCH ABOUT

THE MAELSTROM

A restaurant in the Berkshires, MA

Status: In Progress
Client: Private
Dine in concert with the weather; The form is its namesake: a spiraling roof that pulls rainwater into a controlled swirl—self-cleaning the surface, washing the solar panels, and irrigating a terraced food garden on its way down. The flow ultimately gathers in a natural pool within a basement-level exterior courtyard, where plants and soil purify it underground before it’s reused for the restrooms, kitchen, and surrounding landscape.

Designed with custom gradient software, the spiral aligns water behavior with the sun path—maximizing PV performance while letting daylight sweep through the interior like a slow, cinematic pan. And then the same tool does the unglamorous part: rationalizing the geometry into developable + parabolic surfaces that can be built from standard architectural parts.

Architecture that doesn’t just sit in a landscape, it circulates through it.

Diagram showing how the spiral gable form augments natural site phenomena

Ground floor plan

Basement floor plan

Long section showing nested hallways and basement-level open-air courtyard