Ludica Balances by Arch11
Ludica opens to Boulder, CO, United States with a burst of light and color, a modern house by Arch11 tuned to urban scale and domestic ritual. Inside, art, furniture, and daylight work together so every room performs as gallery and living quarter, shifting from quiet daily use to social evenings with ease.
Morning light pours through a run of skylights, drawing a bright path across pale wood floors and white walls. Color collects on a low, layered sofa that turns the main room into both lounge and viewing bench.
This house is a compact urban residence in Boulder, CO, United States, planned by Arch11 as an art vessel and modern home in equal measure. Every room carries the owners’ contemporary collection, yet the interiors still read as relaxed, livable volumes rather than formal galleries. The sequence leans on daylight, clean surfaces, and bold furnishings so color and texture come from art, textiles, and the changing sky.
From the street, a tall, gabled volume wrapped in vertical cladding keeps the interior world discreet while a simple door and purposeful windows hint at life inside. Once past the threshold, the feeling shifts from quiet exterior to luminous interior, as a double-height living area funnels light down from generous roof apertures and toward the central seating zone.
Living Room As Gallery
In the main living room, a vivid modular sofa anchors the floor, its saturated blocks of red, yellow, and patterned fabric playing against a restrained envelope. White walls rise to the skylit ceiling, carrying large-scale paintings and a mounted screen while a dark hearth line and sculptural figure ground the composition at eye level. A glass balustrade along the upper gallery keeps views open between levels, so art on the lower walls, the mezzanine, and the far corridor shares a single visual field.
Kitchen Framed By Light
The kitchen leans toward calm tones, with soft gray cabinetry and light wood cladding that set a quiet stage for cooking and conversation. A waterfall island with pale countertop extends toward the sliding glass wall, backed by sculpted wood bar stools that echo the warm floor. Behind the cooktop, veined stone draws a subtle line of movement, while a full-height stainless refrigerator and minimalist hardware keep the palette clean. When the glass wall slides open, the island reads as a threshold between interior cooking zone and outdoor terrace.
Sky-Lit Circulation And Rooms
Above the living room, a slender bridge crosses beneath a run of roof windows, turning a simple hallway into a light-washed gallery for sculpture and framed work. Slim guards and pale decking boards keep the focus on daylight, which lands sharply on the walls and floors through the day. Bedrooms tuck behind this upper level, where black-framed glazing opens to treetops, distant roofs, and mountain edges, and a crystal chandelier adds a note of urban domesticity. In the bathroom, large marble-patterned slabs wrap floor and walls around a freestanding tub, matched with skylights and a tall window so bathing happens against a bright, almost weightless backdrop.
Hidden Rooms And Collected Objects
Deeper in the plan, a dark built-in library wall carries books, ceramics, and smaller artworks, turning storage into a dense, layered display. One panel swings open as a concealed door to a compact room beyond, reinforcing the sense that the house holds both public and tucked-away domains. Shelves stay crisp and linear, allowing the color of spines, pottery, and framed drawings to do most of the visual work in this quieter corner. Throughout, finishes stay consistent—pale flooring, controlled accent walls—so objects and art register as the main ornament.
Outdoor Rooms For Play
Beyond the kitchen, a deck extends the living areas into the open air, furnished with low chairs and textiles that mirror the interior’s relaxed mood. Steel framing traces shadows across the terrace, echoing the house roofline while leaving the zone open to sun and sky. A shipping-container pool lines one edge, its dark basin reflecting trees, lounge chairs, and the pale cladding of the house. Nearby, a bocce court, gardens, and a compact outdoor kitchen tighten the connection between daily routines, artful interior rooms, and easygoing recreation.
As day fades, the exterior reads as a quiet silhouette, with warm rectangles of light hinting at the colorful life inside. Interior art, furniture, and controlled surfaces continue to hold the narrative, supported by the steady glow from skylights and tall windows. The result is a residence where every room feels tuned to both the collection and the patterns of everyday living.
Photography courtesy of Arch11
Visit Arch11
