This story is part of our annual look at the state of American design. This year, we’re highlighting work that shines through an acrimonious moment—and makes the case for optimism.

Tudum. For Jack Becker and Andrew Linn, Netflix’s audio logo is the sound of a career-making idea. Since launching their architecture studio, Bldus, in 2013, the former classmates had been intent on finding healthy building materials originating largely within striking distance of their Washington, D.C., base. Their initiative came into sharper focus with Netflix’s 2015 release of the culinary documentary Chef’s Table, whose interviewees often insisted that meals were only as good as the ingredients procured from nearby growers. Why couldn’t Bldus devise buildings just as farm-to-table chefs were approaching food?

“D.C.’s regulations favor traditional city forms, which puts some constraints on a specific aesthetic agenda. A materials-driven architecture allows us to pursue our intellectual ambitions within this more conservative framework,” Jack says of what he and Linn call “farm-to-shelter” architecture’s appeal.

Of course, the pair had to learn whether farm-to-shelter architecture was even possible. They first did so in the capital city’s Anacostia neighborhood, where they had purchased a Queen Anne–style house for Jack to occupy. In 2018, after completing that building’s rehabilitation, the architects erected a freestanding office in its yard using minimally processed products like structural bamboo panels, wool insulation, and black locust lumber, favoring the local supply chain when possible. The projects that followed from that accessory structure, including an alley house featured in Dwell (January/February 2023), confirmed demand for the method.

Among the fans of the Anacostia experiment was landscape architect Maddie Hoagland-Hanson, whom Jack started dating in 2019. Maddie recalls thinking of the accessory structure, “The reason the architecture feels good is that it looks like what it is, which is adapted from living things.” She moved into the Victorian the following year and shared the office with Jack while Covid paused D.C.’s usual rhythms. The experience solidified Jack and Maddie’s feelings for each other, too, and they decided to create a new residence for themselves.

So began a search for a fixer-upper or other quirky property that would be affordable despite the frenzied pandemic marketplace, in which Jack would frequently cross-reference vacant lands against public tax records to identify their owners. His sleuthing bore incredible fortune: two parcels facing each other across a Capitol Hill alley that, because they once sported brick row houses, still had immediate access to water and sewer utilities. The owner agreed to sell one lot for a discounted price in exchange for Jack’s architectural services for the other.

“People have asked what the house was like before we renovated it. They thought it was an old alley house, because in many ways it feels like a vintage piece of architecture.”
—Jack Becker, architect and resident

Measuring approximately 68 feet along a north-south axis and abutting a warehouse immediately to its east, Jack and Maddie’s 18-foot-wide alley lot seemed to necessitate a rectilinear two-story building that would maximize livable square footage. Jack roughly heeded that call, conceiving a narrow volume with a south-facing oriel in the primary bedroom to overlook a fenced-in terrace garden filled with perennials. (The cork that covers the exterior is an instance, Linn points out, when he and Jack occasionally “leave localism opportunities on the table” for budget or performance reasons. In this case, the Portuguese-harvested cladding was chosen for its impressive durability.)

Along the building’s long west side, Jack folded the perimeter wall away from the alley to make room for a semi-enclosed ground-floor vestibule. Upstairs, the structural bamboo panels alternate in and out to yield a balcony for the primary bedroom, as well as an outdoor stair that accesses a roof garden where Jack and Maddie grow their own produce. The vestibule doors feature crisscrossing rails and stiles, while the balconies and rooftop are edged in a continuation of the white oak vertical slats that cover the cork cladding, to hide the facade’s spatial complexities. “The historical D.C. row house has layers of negotiation from the street—you cross a sidewalk, a fence, and a small garden to enter the house—whereas with an alley house you’re building on the road itself,” Jack explains. The zigzagging envelope “reintroduces the buffers you find in a conventional situation.”

“A building isn’t something that comes out of the mind—it’s something that comes out of the earth.”
—Maddie Hoagland-Hanson, resident

Jack’s origami-like design is part of his and Maddie’s wider goal to enjoy both landscape and privacy in a crowded city. The terrace and roof gardens underscore connection to nature, while the house’s high awning and slat-shielded windows prevent the couple and their anxious Neapolitan mastiff, Franklin, from broadcasting day-to-day activities to neighbors. “Some decisions that were made for discretion also make the daylight gentler,” says Maddie, who now works as a horticulturist for a D.C. nonprofit. Jack notes that the fenestration gives the interior an almost “ecclesiastical” atmosphere.

The space also is a continuation of the Bldus vision of healthy architecture. The cavities of the structural panels, for example, are filled with dense-pack cellulose and hemp insulation, and their interior faces are stained with a Vermont-made cheese by-product that eliminates the toxins of water-based polyurethane finishes. Jack also used prefabricated bamboo for interior millwork, and some plywood panels that were additionally bought for the interior are finished with spray cork in lieu of paint.

“Someone posted on Instagram that this was ‘definitely the brownest house I’ve ever seen.’ I took that as a compliment. It is an exceptionally brown house.”
—Jack Becker

In another example of double-duty design, the limited material palette helped keep the construction schedule to a mere nine months, with Linn calling Jack and Maddie’s home “a test case for healthy urban infill development in D.C. that anyone buying a ground-up house could afford.” Meanwhile, “there’s something about cork that makes a more comfortable environment for people to share experiences,” Jack says, adding that cork’s acoustic properties have benefited a certain jittery canine in his and Maddie’s lives: “Right now Franklin is lazing on the floor in the kitchen,” he notes, “whereas in Anacostia he would be on his feet every fifteen minutes to suss out what’s going on outside.”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record, Builder, and Interior Design: Bldus / @bld.us

Structural Engineering: JZ Engineering

MEP Engineering: KK Engineering / @kkedesign

Civil Engineering: CAS Engineering / @casengdc

Landscape Design: Maddie Hoagland-Hanson

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A “Farm-to-Shelter” Home Asks: Why Can’t Architects Make Buildings the Way Chefs Approach Food?