Wall House Synopsis

Use: 3 bedroom, 2 ½ bath single-family residence with detached garage/flex space.

Location: Seattle, WA

Lot Size: 30’ X 120’ w/ alley

Floor Area: 1900 SF (residence), 500 SF (garage/flex space)

The shifting needs of daily life on a tight urban lot are addressed through creative, efficient and flexible use of space. The entire site is designed as an alternating sequence of indoor and outdoor rooms connected by a continuous cedar-clad wall. The main floor space is a single open volume in which living, dining and cooking activities seamlessly overlap. The relationship between inside and out is blurred through the use of full-width slide/fold doors that extend the space into the private garden, the more public front yard, or both. The upper floor is an efficient arrangement of three bedrooms and two baths with an open media/office space that can be converted to a fourth bedroom in the future. The kids’ bedrooms have generous loft spaces that they can ‘grow into’ over time.

The ‘garage’ is a flexible space that can be accessed from either the main house or the alley. It can serve as a home occupation, guest house, accessory dwelling unit, or expanded play space for kids and adults alike.

The house is decidedly modern but comfortably relates to its traditional neighbors through scale and material. The shed roof is sloped to form a transition between the multi-family housing to one side and single family to the other.

Domestic hot water is provided by evacuated tube solar panels on the south sloping roof while a high-efficiency, in-floor radiant system provides warmth. The house is pre-wired for a 4 KW solar photovoltaic electrical system. The EcoSmart fireplace in the living room burns denatured ethanol, a naturally derived fuel that burns cleanly and requires no venting.

The new house is built upon the foundation of the previously existing one, which was hand-deconstructed for material re-use.