I work with a lot of clients that subscribe to the belief that bigger isn't necessarily better. As a believer in this myself, it's been a privilege to be featured in several of the "Not So Big" series of books by Sarah Susanka. I've recently had a client who exemplified this concept and I wanted to share their story with you.

Laura and Brian B. found us through the "Not So Big" website (www.sarahsusanka.com). They have a modest little mid-century rambler in what's become a very exclusive neighbourhood just outside Seattle: Clyde Hill, which happens to be the same small neighbourhood that Bill Gates lives in. Laura and Brian's house is in an older, more modest section of Clyde Hill; nonetheless, many of these little old homes are being torn down and replaced with McMansions at an alarming rate, much to the chagrin of neighbours who choose to remain (in their original homes).

The city of Clyde Hill has been trying to find ways to dissuade these pumped-up houses from maximizing their footprint and size on these lots, so when we applied for a variance to add a very small addition to this very small existing one-story house, we were met with huge resistance. Laura and I both engaged with the city agents to assure them that our intention was to keep this house small-even espousing the Not-So-Big philosophy; and were able to persuade the city to grant our setback variance to build this 300sf addition, which enabled a remodel that vastly improved the livability of this still-small home.
http://www.ctabuilds.com/notsobigattitude.html

As a result, Laura & Brian are thrilled with their Not-So-Big home, and the City of Clyde Hill has ear-marked this project as a reference to illustrate the benefits of planning and building modestly but carefully considered!

Thank you, Sarah Susanka, for espousing your philosophies nation-wide! We all benefit in many valuable ways.

Julie Campbell AIA, LEED GA

Labels: architecture and design, remodeling and building

We've been fortunate to have had a blast of artic cold and sunny weather here in Seattle -- it's demonstrated to even the most non believer of non believers the relevance of passive solar heating! Our offices, which we lease, have old single pane glass windows that face directly south, with views of Lake Union and the Seattle skyline. When it's sunny, and especially when the sun in low in the sky in the winter, fall and spring -- it is toasty warm inside our offices and we don't use any other heat! In the summer, when the sun is high, our office stays much cooler as sunlight is not directly coming in our windows. So for our clients, for the architecture of their buildings, we locate them very carefully to take full advantage of the potential of solar design -- for heating, for electrical generation, for natural ventilation and cooling. In remodels of urban structures, we actively look for opportunities to design with the climate, such as strategically locating operable windows to take advantage of summer breezes for cross ventilation, incorporate shading devices and plantings, or utilizing geothermal heat pumps. There's a lot one can do to save energy and live more comfortably too, more in tune with the natural surroundings, and still have lovely spaces and buildings.

Labels: architecture and design, remodeling and building

We're only a week a half away from the Remodeled Home Tour & Benefit! This is a self guided tour to 19 newly remodeled houses in the metropolitan Seattle area, including Seattle (Queen Anne), Bellevue, & Kirkland. Dates are: Saturday & Sunday, October 17th & October 18th from 10am-5pm. Tickets with addresses & descriptions are free and "tour passports" can be obtained in advance from any Dunn Lumber location or at any home on the tour. This passport describes all 19 homes.

Please check out the official Tour website at http://www.remodeltour.com/ for complete home descriptions, pictures and tour map! Home addresses and directions will be live on the website next week. You will see how various designers and builders have solved design problems brought to them by their clients, and how these changes have enabled the homeowners to enjoy their homes more fully and make better use of their properties. You will see outstanding craftsmanship that's a pleasure for the homeowners to both see and utilize.

The tour will also benefit various charities of the homeowners' choice and contributions are voluntary. Our homeowners in Queen Anne have chosen to donate all contributions to the Queen Anne Helpline. Please feel free to make a monetary donation or gently used clothing, blankets and non-perishable food items As stated in their mission statement, the Queen Anne Helpline is there "to promote personal dignity, self-respect, hope, and an independent quality of life to our neighbors by providing supportive social services to those who need assistance." This charity is truly well-rounded, offering a clothing bank, food bank, tutoring, worker assistance and rental vouchers-just to name a few. For a more comprehensive list of their offerings, please visit their website at http://www.queenannehelpline.org/.

We hope to see you October 17th or 18th! For a sneak peek and description of our showcase home: www.ctabuilds.com/queenanne_foursquare.html

Labels: architecture and design, remodeling and building

Join the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild's Central Puget Sound Chapter for 10x10x10, a fast-paced evening highlighting some of the most exciting new green building projects in the Seattle area. The format is straightforward: 10 presenters are allowed 10 minutes and 10 slides to show the crowd why their projects are leading edge green. Please join us--seating is limited, so we encourage purchasing advance tickets.

For architects and design professionals: 10x10x10 features some of Puget Sound's foremost green design professionals, showing their latest approaches to regional sustainable design. Come see what clients are looking for, and enjoy an opportunity to network with like-minded design professionals (and potential clients).

For builders and developers: 10x10x10 offers an opportunity to see what technologies and strategies design professionals and building owners are including in their projects, and hear how the real-life application plays out. This event is a snapshot of the future of building--come see what's around the bend, and stay ahead of the curve.

For homeowners: 10x10x10 is a chance to see the future of green building, today. See real-life projects and learn what works as well as lessons learned... invaluable information if you're considering a green remodel or new construction project yourself. 10x10x10 creates a fun atmosphere in which to peek into the workings of local green design and construction firms, and can provide inspiration for your own project plans.

When: Friday September 25, 2009 (doors open at 6:30pm)
Where: Seattle Public Library, Microsoft Auditorium 1000 Fourth Avenue, Downtown Seattle
Complimentary light fare available; no-host beer and wine; green raffle
Tickets: $20 advance, $25 door (cash or check only at door) www.brownpapertickets.com/event/75141
Information: www.ecobuilding.org/chapters/central_puget_sound/10x10x10
Email: 10x10...@cps.ecobuilding.org


For thoughts on green building see: http://www.ctabuilds.com/2009/07/building-green-building-sensibly.html

Labels: architecture and design, green building

One of the big advantages of living in the Puget Sound area is the fact that just outside your door and around the corner there is a spirit-lifting view of the surrounding environment. You don't have to live on a bluff to have this experience either -- just open up the walls of your home to let the light and the view in.

Opening up the walls of your home, or even adding to your house with a light-filled addition, can do a lot for your attitude and improve the value of your house. We are light starved here in the Northwest, with our gray, winter light and short days. Natural light becomes very important!

You can open up to this light by utilizing windows or glass doors to: 1) maximize the view of the mountains, sound, lake, city, and weather; 2) provide a special view into your garden and let the changing seasons, views and colors in; 3) make your home or room feel larger by breaking down the barrier of enclosures formed by walls/roof/floors or even neighbors; 4) bring the outside in -- in the Northwest Tradition.

It's obvious to open up if you have a view right outside, perhaps adding a deck or an addition or even another story. Just be aware that with western-facing windows, your home can overheat uncomfortably with summer's afternoon solar gain, and furnishings can fade due to ultraviolet light exposure. You can ameliorate these problems with overhangs, trellises, and with solar shading screens.

It's not so obvious when you don't have that mega-view outside or when your neighbor is right next to you. If you have a garden you love, or are thinking of one, or there's a special focal tree outside, you can open up to let this view, this always-changing bit of nature, into your home. And if you frame that bit of nature just right, you have just added an "outside room" to your home, with its particular light and spaciousness and colors. When adding windows, try to have light coming from more than one direction, for balance, and to reduce glare.

Even a basement room can benefit from opening up. A large window-well can provide an expansive feel in what could be an otherwise claustrophobic room. Then perhaps, put some plantings or artwork or a garden in that window well, so there's some color and something to look at. Or, in cases when you're squeezed in between neighbors, and that part of your home is too dark, put some windows in and screen off your neighbor with plantings such as fast growing, well-contained bamboo. You'll now have filtered or dappled light coming in and pleasant greenery you can look out at.

Windows can make your home or room feel larger besides simply capturing a view. Large windows with low sills and with high head heights or flanking pairs of corner windows provide for a much more expansive feeling -- a "sweeping view" outside. They 'dematerialize' the wall and bring the outside in. This can be wonderful! However, the Northwest winters are abundant with cold, gray light that may not be all that comfortable, unless it's offset with carefully chosen interior furnishings, textures, and colors.

Besides letting the outside in, with the light and the views, windows and doors are an important part of the 'vocabulary' of your home. You can update an older home in function, appearance, and quality of light with new banks of windows. Windows define the look and style of your house. A newer home might have larger expanses of glass, where an older home may have windows divided up by mullions. So give consideration to what they look like alongside the other windows of your home -- from both the inside and outside. Think about the scale of things... For new homes, window sizes and patterns say much about the home's esthetic. Simply adding or placing windows without consideration of their effect of the facade of your home can be disastrous! (See www.ctabuilds.com/queenanne.html) to view a new "old" home as defined by windows, traditional on street side, contemporary on view side).

The best way to see how windows look on your home is to draw a picture of your house with all the new and old windows on it. You can simplify this process by sketching over an enlarged photograph or Xerox of the house or utilizing computer programs that let you draw over. Draw as much detail as you can and then stand back to look at the whole wall!

So, go ahead -- capture that view whether it's far away or close up. Bring some nature into your home along with that often needed light, and you will feel better for it!

Labels: architecture and design, remodeling and building

Often, we think about adding a room, expanding our kitchen, or reconfiguring the spaces in our home by removing a few walls here and there. We may call a contractor and go ahead. However, what we get will most likely be less than what we could have had. Besides having spent more time on the details, we should have spent more time considering the whole picture!

Way back when I was a student, I remember being called to a potential client's house and asked if I could design them a third bedroom upstairs. I was thrilled to have a real life job! So I measured up the house and took the info home with me and drew a plan of the existing house. After studying the plan, I realized this was a more difficult problem than I had thought. You don't simply glue on a bedroom! Among other things (like zoning and building codes), there's access and structure to consider. And in this case, building on top of that part of the house which, in itself, was "iffy" was even more "iffy"!I was stuck and worried that I had taken on more than I could handle.

Slowly, it began to dawn on me that if I reconfigured the existing spaces in a more efficient manner and added a simple extension of the living room and therefore not having to deal with the "iffy" structure of the house, I could get a third bedroom plus a much more gracious living room! And, it would be a lot less costly.

What I had done was look beyond the boundaries of the particular "problem" and at a much larger picture. In essence, I had stumbled onto the value of holistic thinking in relationship to a project . In the parlance of designers, it's called master planning.

If you're finding your home now is inadequate, whether aesthetically or functionally, you generally will be better off not to simply attack the immediate problem but to think in terms of long-range plans and goals. Then you can design your home to be what you really want it to be, even if you can't do the all work right now. The advantages are numerous. For example, you can:

1. design in such a way that you can phase the work as your budget and needs
allow;
2. insure that what you do today won't negatively impact what you'll be needing
or wanting in the future;
3. price the project at an early stage, in parts and in whole, to help you make those
money-related decisions;
4. decide from these plans whether your current house will actually meet your
goals or whether you should realistically think about moving; and
5. understand better how all the spaces will interrelate.

So, when you're thinking about building or remodeling, think big! You can always pare it down later.

(For more information, see our website: http://www.ctabuilds.com/range_of_services.html)

Labels: architecture and design, remodeling and building

As Seattle Architects and Contractors, we have entered two of our remodel projects in this competition for new city housing. Remodeling, we believe, is the ultimate green building, i.e. reusing existing buildings and not sending them to the landfill.

Check them out!

http://www.ctabuilds.com/queenanne_foursquare.html

http://www.ctabuilds.com/blueridge.html

We think you can remodel and have a beautiful house for today's and future generations!

Here's more information on the FutureShack competition:

Speaking of the "ugly town house" problem, the American Institute of Architects Seattle is taking a hard look at the new model for city living with Future Shack: Housing the 21st Century.

On September 13th, in a celebration of urban living done well, 10 projects will be recognized for housing design that not only meets our needs, but elevates our style of living. Those projects will also be featured in the September 13th Pacific Northwest Magazine.

The jury is looking at projects that offer solutions for families, incorporate Seattle's historic fabric, offer new models of production and delivery, use resources economically and are adaptable. Only projects completed after June 2004 are eligible.

The public is welcome to the event, beginning at 5pm at the Fisher Pavilion in the Seattle Center. It includes a discussion by the jury, made up of three outspoken Seattle citizens and four architectural/design professionals. Steve Scher, host of KUOW-FM's "Weekday" will moderate.

Cost is $15 general admission, $5 for students and seniors. For more information go to www.aiaseattle.org/futureshack.

Labels: architecture and design, remodeling and building

There's so much talk these days about "building green"; how does one sort through the spin and hype? I personally think that so much of this buzz is generated primarily to sell magazines and services! That said, I also believe it's extremely important to consider the products we surround ourselves with, and the impact of our footprint on our environment.

Building construction is one of the most intensively consumptive activities on our plant. It consumes resources and produces waste more than most other effort humans perform! So it's certainly a step in the right direction to "think green" when embarking on a new construction project - even at the scale of your individual single home. But green thinking gets complicated when faced with ever-increasing possibilities in designing your home to be as green as possible. This is where some common sense can be the best guide.

It's our believe that, in general, simple moves can be the most effective, especially for residential construction. For example, proper siting that enables breezes to blow through operable windows is far easier on the plant than air-conditioning. A well-insulated roof that simply allows water to drain into rain barrels or gardens is better off in the end than "green roofs" that require extra structure and waterproof membranes that produce toxins during their manufacturing process. Metals and plastics require much more energy to produce than wood - timber is sustainable. As a general rule, if we think back to how indigenous peoples built their dwellings in response to their local environments, usually we'll find simple, creative, very effective solutions to those same issues for which we now have expensive not-very-sustainable technologies to solve!

So what ARE sensible suggestions for building green? Here's my list!

1. Design and Build small. Less building equals less resources, less cost, and a cozier home! Sarah Susanka has written an informative, breath-of-fresh-air series of books under the Not-So-Big banner. Visit her website to get a sense of this timely building philosophy, whether you're planning a project or not! http://www.notsobig.com/

2. Remodel instead of tearing down/building new! Much less waste into the landfill - very simple. And a good remodel can usually create as much transformation as you can imagine.

3. Design in response to your local environment and micro climate. Sun exposure, prevailing breezes, optimal garden space, orientation away from noise and undesirable elements: all these should figure into your design to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your home, lessening the need for technological interventions.

4. Recycle, reuse construction debris. Opportunities abound for construction waste recycling. CTA recycles almost ALL of our construction waste. Old cabinets, fixtures, windows & doors, trim and appliances can often find new uses through one of several resale venues. In Seattle: http://www.earthwise-salvage.com/ and http://www.seconduse.com/ and http://www.re-store.com/ are just a few. You can also find the same for your own project - like hardwood flooring from a local gym demo! There's an ever changing offering of cool stuff! Habitat for Humanity also will take good working appliances and cabinets.

5. Materials and finishes: there are many new and exciting legitimate green products on the market. Low VOC paints, lumber composite products, carpet and finishes (i.e. floor finishes) that are healthier within your home, and more sustainable in their manufacturing process; recycled tile, concrete counters, cork flooring: the list here is too long to cite. There is a great resource here in Seattle that researches and showcases green building materials: http://www.echohaus.com/

Overall, I think that "building green" is building simply. It just requires some forethought!

(see about our principals to for info about their long history of building green: http://www.ctabuilds.com/principals.html)

Labels: architecture and design, green building

As both Northwest architects and contractors, I like to think these words apply to the work we do. Whether its a remodel, addition or new house, your building project should be about these values, no matter who does it. It may be about price, but its also about enjoying our lives in our homes. We at CTA believe a home should be a joy to live in, and that is the essence of our work.

Beauty: Your house should be beautiful to look at, from the outside and from the inside. It says something about the owners. Living in a lovely home brings pleasure to its inhabitants, and allows them to further express their own creative selves. After all, your home is the one place where you can be truly free to express and surround yourself with the things you love and value. Living inside nice volumes and spaces, surrounded by well crafted details, nicely used materials, and an appropriate color and texture scheme affords a sense of calm in this busy world. Important also to a home with soul, is its connectedness with the outside world. Windows and opening spaces that bring Nature into your home further enhances that spirit of calm and sustenance that enables a home to be truly nourishing to those who dwell within. Sometimes we want to blur the distinction between inside and outside so as to allow Nature to bring her beauty and sense order to us.

Function: The home should function well and serve the needs of the inhabitants. It must provide ample space for activities of the household. This doesn't necessarily mean large -- it can mean well laid out and thoughtful. When you look at floor plans you want to think and imagine how you move through the spaces, and how you use each space, including the outside spaces. Further, the mechanics of the house must integrate well with a multitude of activities, i.e. heating, cooling, cooking, bathing, watching movies, turning on lights & music, watching movies, going on line, etc. This should be a seamless integration with the building's inhabitants' habits. The mechanics are simply well chosen tools to support the life within.

Pragmatism: This means that the house was well constructed, in a reasonable manner, no matter how large or small the project. Materials should not be wasted and green building strategies should be always employed. It is your shelter from the elements, your retreat and sanctuary, and a place for family and friends to gather and enjoy.

Labels: architecture and design, remodeling and building