Architecture

- Miami, Florida Dwell Magazine : July / August 2017

One of the main sustainable features of the home is its small size. “It’s a very small house with good insulation and natural ventilation,” says architect Line Solgaard. “Keeping the building small is one of the most important considerations for sustainability.”

The home is perched lightly on the site and the landscape has been integrated into the architecture through a sympathetic form and materiality, and the expansive windows. “We long for this untouched nature,” says architect Line Solgaard of the site. “It brings us calmness and maybe even helps us be more in touch with ourselves.”

The home features a combination of interior and exterior living spaces that afford privacy to the occupants. “There are social spaces for everyone to be together, but also spots outside the building where people can have a private coffee—and that’s so important,” says architect Line Solgaard.

The house retained its same basic form in front, part of a lush West Seattle neighborhood.

Mike and Bryce planted dripping Algerian ivy to hang suspended against the raw concrete for a touch of greenery. "I always had a vision of growing plants on the facade,

The café’s polished concrete floors are ground down to “expose some of the aggregate,” Mike says. Vintage leather chairs balance a custom banquette, upholstered in a forest-green wool felt by Kravet.

From the inside, the 45 degree fins facilitate an elegant display of sunlight. “We’re facing west, but because there is a tall building across the street, we’re never going to get direct sunlight into the building,” Shively says.“The best we can do is get sun from the South, and so those fins, although they don't necessarily bounce the light into the building, they themselves glow in the afternoon as the sun comes around that way. It’s a really interesting sculptural thing to appreciate from inside the space.”

The sheltering forms are a progressive reimagining of ancient structures and simple construction principles, realised using contemporary digital fabrication techniques.

Shigeru Ban, Cardboard Cathedral A testament to the strength, skill, and poignancy of the Pritzker winner’s “emergency architecture,” this A-frame marvel of cardboard tubing and shipping containers served as a potent symbol for Christchurch’s recovery after an earthquake. In another symbolic touch, the stained glass triangle at the front of the church incorporates imagery from the former cathedral’s famous rose window.

The modest two-story studio building occupies the southeastern corner of the property. Downstairs it houses Caryn’s studio, where she shares her enthusiasm for the Alexander Technique with her clients. Upstairs is where Greg and his small team dream up future architectural visions. The building is made of a lightweight steel framework entirely clad in what is traditionally a roofing material: an asphalt-colored shingle, made of only two millimeter-thick recycled rubber sheets, finished with a silicate coating (with a 20-year lifespan). The circular pavers are not actual pavers, but the residue from the pouring of the coffered slabs for House Katz. Instead of letting it go to waste, Greg asked the builders to pour the small amount of concrete left over from each newly mixed batch into a circular container. Once set, these circular shapes were popped out and stored to ultimately become a playful walkway between Caryn and Greg’s studios.

Not only was extra living space necessary for the growing family of four, but the existing house also failed to take advantage of the striking views that drew the couple to the site. The homeowners tapped architect Malcolm Davis of San Francisco–based Malcolm Davis Architecture to redesign and expand the dwelling without damaging the many established oak trees.

Now a good example of the natural lines favored in ’70s aesthetics, Arcturus and the other homes Rick would build in the area were unique at the time. “I freaked out some of the neighbors intially,” he says, “who were not so comfortable with a bunch of, you know, pot-smoking hippies.”

The entryway had to be reconfigured to accommodate the new lower level and its deck, while the existing upper deck was given shade from the sun.

With a new baby on the way and the soon-to-be grandmother moving in, Seattleites Ilga Paskovskis and Kyle Parmentier asked Best Practice Architecture to expand their detached garage into a 570-square-foot ADU, which they now call the Granny Pad. “We can see the joy it brings Grandma when the baby comes over to visit,” says Kyle. “It’s the best part of her day.”