Modern Bonsai Greenhouse

This modern glass building, designed in collaboration with Peter White of ZEN Associates, is set in the garden of a metro Boston residence, and evokes the midcentury penchant for clean, horizontal lines, and exposed structural elements. A painted tubular steel frame is infilled with aluminum sliding glass doors. The subdued luster of anodize bronze finish insists on the dignity of shape and settles the greenhouse into its surroundings.

The interior is divided in two with a finished sitting space in the front and a functioning greenhouse to the rear. The sitting space has a green roof of native grasses and overlooks a Japanese rock garden. The polished concrete floor and gas fireplace provide a sense of domestic interiority. A glass roof lets light into the rear greenhouse, and the gravel floor and teak benches lend this space, used for Bonsai cultivation, a naturalistic atmosphere.

Glass House in the Garden is situated in the landscape designed by the late Ron Herman and ZEN Associates.