SELF-GUIDED

DESIGN BY ROBBY JOHNSTON OF RALEIGH ARCHITECTURE PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEITH ISAACS

WWHEN COMMERCIAL BUILDER Mike Iovino of August

Construction Solutions and his family were ready to find a new home more fitting of their lifestyle in 2019, he decided to make his first foray into residential building. He hired architect Robby Johnston of The Raleigh Architecture Company to design it. Having built for the likes of Patagonia and Urban Outfitters, Iovino felt confident he could tackle it.

With a location in Cameron Village, designing a modern home on an understated scale was important, and a task that Johnston and his team eagerly tackled. “We wanted to reduce the weight of the facade to help sync the home with the scale of the neighborhood,” explains Johnston. His team designed the home with a cantilever—a rigid structural element that is supported at only one end—which drove the format of the rest of the home. “Part of what makes the home visually complex is that from different angles, you see one, two, or three stories. The cantilever allowed the living spaces to expand out and over the backyard and pool area,” says Johnston.

The previous seventy-year-old home gave way to an extraordinary feat of architecture and engineering that is not only sustainable—a hallmark of The Raleigh Architecture Company—but also the perfect size and scale for the Iovino family and the neighborhood. u