In the woods: an architect's own house in the Hudson Valley is designed to evoke Rousseau's simplicity and nature worship.

To 'do something simple well' was Architecture Research Office (ARO) partner Adam Yarinsky's primary aim in building his own country house. *

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The house sits in a clearing on a steep wooded site in upstate New York-Garrison is a small town in a part of the Hudson Valley fast being colonized by weekenders and even some commuters to the city. While Yarinsky's house backs on to the Appalachian Trail and has deer staring through the windows (previous owners of the plot used it for shooting), some neighbouring houses (all just out of sight) have neatly mown lots and feel very suburban. The impression of isolation is carefully stage-managed.

As a result, Garrison House feels comfortable and unimposing. It is a home where an architect-owner can switch off from work, relax and enjoy the world he has created. And it is robust enough to cope with his two energetic small children: there is nothing too precious or pristine.

In plan, two long rectilinear blocks are juxtaposed side by side, but only partially aligned. The lower one sits on the ground, the upper one (raised by about four feet) is over a basement, and built into the hillside. A steep drive leads down to a parking area on a third level, above the house. From here, the entrance route is via a semi-enclosed courtyard with a concrete retaining wall. Standing at the front door, you see along the full length of the upper block and out to the woods beyond. A wide hall leads past guest accommodation to a single volume: a large, well-proportioned kitchen/dining/living room, which is described by Yarinsky as an 11 ft (3.35m) high 'loft like' space, but with full-height glazing on two sides and generous windows to the hillside.

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Materials suggest continuity between inside and outside: floors are cast concrete; the horizontally corrugated aluminium siding slides past the front door and into the hall and the rough timber of the structural mullions and framing recalls the regular rhythm of a dense forest. The thin plan and its orientation are chosen to facilitate cross ventilation. But the house can also be air-conditioned and the envelope is airtight, so continuity is visual rather than physical. With only a single narrow doorway in the far corner of living space, one at the end of the lower block and one to one side of the main bedroom, nature is held at bay and provides a backdrop. Tension between natural and man-made is further emphasized by closer examination of the materials. In fact, the structural timber is an engineered product, Paralam, made in sheets from compressed chips of fast-growing softwood, and cut into strips. Factory-stencilled markings on the original slab edges are a reminder of this process. In contrast, Yarinsky relishes the gradual visual softening of the aluminium which will weather to a soft silver.

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Bathrooms are simply detailed with subway tiles. Windows are narrow profile aluminium, a system chosen in consultation with the contractor for ease of fixing to the plywood of the wall. Where windows puncture the solid wall, fibre cement board is used in place of aluminium. The palette is restrained and low key.

Yarinsky met his ARO partner Stephen Cassell when both were working for Steven Holl. They are building a reputation as a practice that learns through the process of building. The clarity and unfussiness of Garrison House, and the sense of detachment, unusual for an architect's own house, should aid wider success.

* The practice's work to date is described in ARO: architecture research office by Stephen Cassell and Adam Yarinsky, Princeton Architectural Press, March 2003