White oak slats and cork cladding give texture to the facade of a house that architect Jack Becker designed for himself and his wife, landscape architect Maddie Hoagland-Hanson, in an alley in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, D.C. High awning windows let daylight in while preserving privacy.
With a home for his family along the Mississippi River waterfront, architect Barry Yoakum aimed to achieve the highest standards of energy performance and carbon mitigation without compromising on design. A modern anomaly among its historically styled neighbors, “the house is a fresh, authentic approach to climate change but also a piece of architecture,” he says. Its Pac-Clad aluminum panels with Bone White Energy Star coating reflect light differently from minute to minute while reducing solar heat gain. “The house will age well over time,” says Barry, who expects the cladding to have a long life span.
Setsumasa and Hideaki toss on the rain fly. The solar panel in the foreground supplies daytime electricity.
The former painting studio is now a multipurpose kitchen/dining/living/office space. Woodworking accounted for a major portion of the renovation budget—many of the furnishings were custom made using either pine or birch plywood (as seen in the countertop and office table).
Floor-to-ceiling sliding doors in the bedroom create an instant indoor-outdoor connection.
The elevated modular home is clad in locally sourced radiata pine treated with a stone-gray oil stabilizer.
