Siding

Plants Up Against Painted Walls

When the Zimmerman family settled in Seattle, Washington, in the late 1990s they bought a 1,100-square-foot Craftsman built in the 1920s. Fast-forward to today. Not wanting to leave their beloved neighborhood, but hurting for space, they enlisted the help of local design-build firm Ninebark to create a separate living area. Working from sketches that the residents had from their uncle, Gary Schoemaker, an architect in New York, Ninebark realized a refined structure that serves as a playroom, office, and guesthouse for visitors, complete with a kitchenette and full bathroom.

Day skinned the house in corrugated-aluminum siding, a tough industrial palette he picked up while designing airports. The corrugated stainless steel canopy was fabricated by Day’s former SCI-Arc classmates.

This dwelling joins a number of structures—such as a boathouse and guesthouse—owned by one family and used for vacations. They needed a new house to accommodate new generations at the reatreat.

The kitchen addition is clad in James Hardie fiber-cement board.

In the back, ferns and other shade-friendly plants thrive beneath the home’s deep overhangs.

The living room wing cantilevers 26 feet off the main structure.

The metal cladding, inspired by a nearby zinc mine, continues seamlessly onto the house’s roof for a minimalist shed effect. “The drip edge turns to make the wall,” explains architect Brandon Pace, “but changes above the window to accommodate a downspout. Any place where the metal contacts glass, or where you walk underneath, we have an internal gutter.”