Modern addition

The Tower House is made up of tiny houses, clustered at the southern end of the property and clad in white steel panels and western red cedar shingles. Spinning off the living room on the north side of the main house, the children’s study sits separate from the other pavilions. On its upper level, Oxley netting forms a web on which the kids and their friends can sit and read with views of the leafy street and garden.

"Clad in economical fiber-cement siding, the ADU reaches down to the ground, while the stucco cladding of the garage reaches up, forming a semi-enclosed entry sequence," says Martin.

The clients for an existing home in Seattle approached Best Practice Architecture with a need to make space for an aging family member, but the home on-site was already filled to the brim. The firm's answer was to expand the existing detached garage into a gracious and airy living suite. The architects worked with the natural, six-foot slope of the site and built the Granny Pad into the hill to gain the needed interior height. The volume on the right is the original garage footprint, which now houses a kitchen and sitting room. The added volume on the left hosts the bedroom, as well as a bathroom beneath the loft space.

The modern addition in the snow at dusk.

open living

Though much of the interior was gutted, the west-wall fireplace was left intact due to the risk that removal could have had on the building's structural integrity.

Instead of focusing on reworking the street-facing front wall of the house, they turned their attention to the back wall, and found a better way to connect the interiors with the beautiful garden. This allowed them to stay true to the suburban vernacular of gabled brick walls and a terra-cotta roof, while modernizing the back section of the house quite dramatically.

By adding a "fifth square

Work It “We wanted to open up the back of the house, but there’s nothing to look at,” says Dana. “So we decided to put something in our yard as a focal point, to create our own view.” The architects came up with a glass-walled studio, which Dana uses as her home office. The architects mounted a steel I-beam that spans the yard, with holes drilled at eight-inch intervals for maximum flexibility of use. Right now it’s used for Ikea play equipment, but later they plan to hang a hammock and a movie screen. ikea.com

The geometric addition, with its cedar rain screen, is joined at the hip with the more traditional residence.