Location: Washington County, Oregon 
Completed:  2014
Scope: Major addition, partial remodel
Size: 740 square foot addition/ 3,300 square foot total

The challenge:

This 1981 plans-built colonial home was situated creatively amongst a grove of large trees, yet its generic design did not harmonize with that environment. The client prompt here was to develop a larger living room with more natural light, a larger dining room and expanded kitchen, and an expanded master suite.

Orientating the new spaces to the outdoors was not difficult, as the building sits on a large lot with many trees. However, due to its low elevation, there were not any obvious view orientations, at least on the first floor, and many of the view lines included unsightly neighboring structures.  

The kitchen needed enlargement, however given its location at the rear of the house’s ground floor, any direct enlargement turned it into a barrier between the house’s entry and the new living space.

The solution:

The three primary rooms of the program express themselves as three volumes; the 1-1/2 story living room, the one story dining room, and the extended mass of the second story master bath. Those three blocks form an compelling interlocking composition and create amenities such as the second story deck over the dining.

The choice was made to orient the primary glass wall to a nearby dense grove of trees, to focus on the middle distance instead of the more typical long view.   This grove of trees stimulate meditative contemplation as seasons change. In expanding the kitchen, it was decided to change the orientation entirely, and annex a previous ‘family room’.

Changing the orientation of the kitchen from front to back of house opened up two hallways through the first floor, one leading directly from the front door to the living room, and another coming down from the staircase, and through the kitchen.

The chosen materials enhance the natural warm tones of the setting. Exterior cladding is western red cedar, windows are douglas fir with copper colored aluminum exterior. Flooring is Oregon myrtlewood, and kitchen countertops are red quartz.