The Brockway house and cottage are situated within a few plots of land from each other in Pentwater, Michigan along Lake Michigan.  The house is intended as a residence for a single person and guests, while the cottage is intended to accommodate large groups of family and guests.  The degree to which one is a cottage and the other is a house is represented by two sets of social values -- the cottage -- extroverted openness, display, lightness and the house – privacy, individuality, and seclusion. 

The Brockway House is organized as two overlapping bars forming an L in plan.   The ground bar is space for a permanent resident and the upper bar is flexible space for visiting guests.  The upper bar is bridged between the lower bar and the site’s topography forming a portal into a courtyard which integrates the house with the site.    

The courtyard serves as the conceptual center of the house by establishing the rhythm and compositionally arranging the experience and relationship between exterior and interior.  The courtyard extends through the house and can be understood as a plane which shifts vertically and horizontally revealing and concealing movement between spaces. Walls, windows, and solids are organized to intensify the contrast between lightness and darkness.  The courtyard links the two bars and the landscape through a continuous loop of circulation. 

The play on revealing vs. concealing, ambiguity vs. clarity, and lightness vs. darkness, is meant to create a varied experience in contrast to the openness of the cottage.