Seattle’s Pike/Pine Corridor is one of the city’s most vibrant neighborhoods. The owner and developer of this project, a long time resident of the neighborhood, prized the area's uniqueness.



Seeking to support the economic and social diversity of the neighborhood, she wanted to fill the disappearing stock of affordable housing. The program is multi-use: ground level retail, twenty-seven units between 623 and 1137square feet, a rooftop garden, and two levels underground parking.

The design response was to look to the history of the site and the neighborhood-- Seattle's "auto row." This typology is captured in 1111 E. Pike’s tall, wide windows and high ceilings, the use of steel at the entrance, and its exterior of panelized siding (with a palette inspired by classic car colors from the 1950's!).

The residence at Combs Point is sited in a diverse natural world of lake, forest, valley, and stream. It is both a center of activity and a quiet retreat for a family that treasures life on the lake.
Photograph © Nic Lehoux

From the fanning delta at the lake’s edge, a delicate necklace of buildings stretches through a forested glen that leads to the waterfall at its head. An elevated boardwalk follows the twisting course of the stream as it connects the buildings and eventually dissolves into a path leading to the falls.

The Blair Barn House is a celebration of the straightforward utilitarian nature intrinsic to farm life. The house takes its clues from 19th century barns and updates them for a sustainable 21st century, with a goal of being modern yet acceptable, in a rural community where families have lived for generations. A locally-sawn white oak skin with few, but large, openings wraps and filters the house with barn light. Over- and under-spaces delineated by steel, custom-milled ash, rope work, stock cabinetry, and salvaged materials, fill the modest volume with barn space tempered with farmer's common sense.

Photograph by Tim NolanThe clients for this house were a couple with three young children, a set of twins and a younger child. Their main concern was to maximise outdoor space. It was therefore essential that there would be sufficient space for the children to play outdoors as well as indoors. The priority of creating an open living space with a direct relationship to a large outdoor space became a driving force in the scheme.

The overall concept, derived from the clients’ requirements, was to create a living space open to the outdoors in a clean contemporary aesthetic. The building would need to allow fluid movement between each space within and perform as a sustainable mechanism.

In order to maximize space, the idea of pushing the mass of the building into the corner of the plot was developed. The concept of defining the bedroom areas and activity spaces as separate elements allowed for the final scheme to be reached. From the exterior, each element appears as a separate entity, however internally these have a strong connection to each other.

Built on a long, narrow site that is positioned between an expansive coastal landscape and a deep, second growth maritime forest. The clients wanted a very modern and very sustainable 5000-square-foot home/compound, including a four-bedroom “main” house with combination living/kitchen and dining/library areas, a master bedroom/home office suite, and a two-bedroom guest wing. The house embraces the outdoors through several elements such as a screen porch, second floor terraces, and a deck level pool.

The architect explains that the site gave him the opportunity to use forms and spaces to sculpt the compound into the landscape by breaking the spatial requirements into three distinct sections. The main house rests at the center, flanked on one side by a guest wing and on the other by the master bedroom/home office suite. The three sections form a U-shaped courtyard around a swimming pool. The three sections can be heated or cooled independently so that the entire compound doesn’t have to use energy if not in use.

The concept for the house is a charred box that protrudes horizontally like fallen lumber, complemented by sandstone rockwork and steel supports. Its concrete pool also reflects the charred timber theme in its internal finish.
The cladding and structure employ the organic and raw materials in the natural surroundings: rough-sawn stained plywood, galvanized steel, and combinations of horizontal and vertical sections mimic the forms of the trees.

Photograph by Dana WheelockThis sixth floor penthouse overlooks to city lakes, the Uptown retail district and the city skyline beyond.  Designed for a young professional, the space is shaped by distinguishing the private and public realms through sculptural spatial gestures.  Upon entry, a curved wall of white marble dust plaster pulls one into the space and delineates the boundary of the private master suite.

The master bedroom space is screened from the entry by a translucent glass wall layered with a perforated veil creating optical dynamics and movement. This functions to privatize the master suite, while still allowing light to filter through the space to the entry. Suspended cabinet elements of Australian Walnut float opposite the curved white wall and Walnut floors lead one into the living room and kitchen spaces.