Walden revisited.

A passionate, beautifully detailed interweaving of dwelling and nature, interior and exterior is almost eighteenth-century, certainly Miesian, in its poetic marriage of pure artefact and wild landscape.

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien are a very strange phenomenon: internationally recognized US architects who have gained their reputation not from the obscurity of their theories and unapproachability of their language, nor from flashy gestures and showbiz antics, but from careful and intelligent use of materials and craftsmanship in pursuit of a gentle, sensuous and thoughtful arrangement of spaces revealed by light. In some ways, their work resembles some of the best to be found in Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia, but they are undoubtedly American in the range of their responses to the very different cultures, climates and landscapes of their country. Their Neurosciences Institute at La Jolla is a reflection of the genial weather of California, while the Art Museum in Phoenix (AR November 1997) is a retreat from the desert extremes of Arizona. The house they made in Manhattan (AR November 1997) is a luminous re-examination of the traditional New York brownstone. And now the weekend place they have created in Long Island is a modern comment on Thoreau's romantic, strange Rousseauesque experiment with living in his primitive hut at Walden Pond - very American.

The new house is anything but primitive, but it does sit next to a large natural pond surrounded by woods, and has views of the distant sea. Designed for a New York family which has never owned a house before, it is intended to be a place of peace and quiet, where parents can, if they want, live a life almost completely isolated from their grown-up children (and vice versa). In the centre of the plan, the kitchen is the physical and metaphorical hub of the place. To its south is the dining-room, and to the north is the more lofty sitting area, all enclosed in a simple rectangular plan. Two wings, connected to the central rectangle by glazed passages, make separate zones for parents and children, very much in the way advocated over 30 years ago by Alexander and Chermeyeff in Community and Privacy. Each wing can be more or less autonomous, and each room has a different view and direct access to the lawns and strongly scented local pines.

As the principal space, the sitting area has a big fireplace clad in split New York blue-stone; beyond it are views of the lake and woods. Much of this place derives its atmosphere from the warmth of the built-in cherrywood furniture, which develops into a study balcony up in the clerestory level over the kitchen. The tray of space is reached by a short flight of stairs that grows out of the cupboards and shelves.

At first sight, the house seems to be made almost entirely of wood. From the west, the path wanders up past the garden hut (a most elegant affair, made as a sort of detached part of the house) to a rather severe front boarded in cedar - the scent of the planks complements the aroma of the pines. This rather defensive side is relieved by the glass link containing the main door between the children's wing and the main central rectangle. Everything (including the detached hut) is kept in order and united by a dark, deep laminated cornice beam covered in patinated copper, which runs round the whole of the complex plan.

On the other side, the house opens to the views. Williams and Tsien clearly wanted the place to be a wooden structure, but could not refrain from dissolving the corners as glued glass joints. Slender steels are sometimes hidden in the timber posts, and the clerestory has metal rather than wooden mullions. The unusual mixture of steel, timber and glass is allowed to set up its own logic. Every detail is precisely considered and beautifully executed. Every view is cherished and enhanced. The place is a sensuous triumph.

Architect Tod Williams, Billie Tsien & Associates

Project architect Peter Arnold

Structural engineer Severud Associates

Photographs Michael Moran