What happens to the suburban single-family home as cities become dense and privacy becomes limited? It must look inward. Through a series of thresholds from opaque to transparent, Yo-Ju Courtyard House, which means “secluded living” in Mandarin Chinese, embraces the future of suburban density by establishing a private experience despite being adjacent to a busy arterial street in the Clyde Hill neighborhood of Bellevue.
Located on a rocky, wind-swept south facing shoreline; this retreat home nestles into the landscape to harmonize with its surroundings and minimize exposure to weather. The home is a vacation retreat for a family of four, who desired a low-impact home with a strong connection to land and sea. The design solution utilizes a simple ‘wedge’ shape geometry, mimicking the hillside slope beyond, and is tucked into a natural depression in the shoreline in order to diminish its visual impact. Living spaces open up completely on north (garden) and south (water) sides via a custom lift-slide door system. Bedrooms focus primarily on the more private, forested slope to the west and the kitchen opens onto an adjacent a rock promontory to the east. Due to the extreme weather exposure of the site, major openings are paired with rolling wall panels to protect them from punishing winter storms, as well as to provide security when unoccupied. The finish palette consists of local materials including douglas fir (floors, trim), western red cedar (siding, wall and ceiling cladding) and pacific madrone (furniture).
Article source: Paul Michael Davis Architects PLLC
Located in Seattle’s lively West Seattle Junction neighborhood, Dalen Bakstad of Bakstad Construction approached Paul Michael Davis Architects to design a new, single-family contemporary house with a lower level ADU on a previously undeveloped corner lot. Using an existing set of plans the clients had put together, the design team reorganized the plans into a simple linear 3,800 sf home. Two volumes were carved away from the west-facing front of the house. One of these served as a covered entry, and the other as a large volume adding sculptural depth to the facade. These two carved away areas were treated as softer spaces in between inside and outside. As such, they have a more precious siding such as redwood, which will be sheltered from the weather, and provide a contrast with the “hard” gray shell. Inside the furnishings are a mix of modern and eclectic throughout the home’s three stories.
Understory at The Spheres is a multifunctional exhibit and visitor center designed to tell the story of The Spheres, Amazon’s iconic and unique insertion into the heart of Seattle. The exhibit unravels the complexity of the architecture and engineering and the very idea behind bringing people closer to nature on a daily basis in the heart of the city. The 3,883-square-foot exhibit is situated at the base of one of The Spheres, providing a fly-through of the orbicular buildings above and something the visitor won’t get in The Spheres themselves, extreme close-up, and intimate footage of the plants in an interpretive and immersive experience.
Aldo Beach House transforms a 1940s beach house into a new multi-generational home doubling the livable area while lightly touching the delicate ecology of the waterfront. Two shifting wings hover over the hillside and beach supported by thin steel columns and pin piles. Located on the eastern shore of Hood Canal near the Bangor submarine base, the new beach house includes the original two-bedroom structure for an expanded program of two new bedrooms, two bathrooms, and flex space. The design consists of three distinct parts: the original footprint, and the two projecting wings: the first a south ground floor addition, and the second an upper-level master suite to the north.
CORE’s design for Mozzeria establishes a truly differentiated pizza prototype concept, which is owned and led by Deaf and hard of hearing people. A simple and modern design aesthetic in combination with a layout that facilitates clear visual communication lines throughout the restaurant results in a social, inclusive, and safe dining experience.
The Wyss family approached Paul Michael Davis Architects with a vision to design a bold, unusual, and adventurous addition to their existing ho-hum 1950s split level where they could raise their 3 active boys. And they really loved the idea of re-purposing shipping containers.
This 10,000-square-foot, two-story interior remodel of a 1910 retail building in downtown Seattle emphasized subtraction rather than addition to radically alter the spatial and light conditions of the space. Two existing load-bearing walls run the length of the area, establishing three linear yet distinct rooms. Symmetrical openings were cut into these walls at even intervals, increasing permeability by allowing for greater flow of traffic between the rooms, as well as creating an open layout with flexible space arrangement. Although the space is currently used as an office, a key goal was to establish a flexible, open design that could be utilized for a variety of public and private functions.
Building upon a series of conceptual schemes for compact living and working units that architect Robert Hutchison has designed over the last decade, this DADU (Detached Accessory Dwelling Unit, also known as a backyard cottage) is sited in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. The site is directly adjacent to Hutchison’s own backyard architecture studio, which was built behind the architect’s own home several years prior. With Alley House, Hutchison presents a new option for urban housing, exploring the backyards of single-family zoned lots as sites for more density in living and working.
Like many older homes, this 4,800 square foot brick French Norman turned its back on a park-like half acre lot in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Unlike its new owners, the existing house was formal, dark and introverted. With appreciation for the historic woodwork, craftsmanship and materials, our clients wanted to preserve history while transforming the home to connect indoor spaces directly to the expansive back yard.
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