In a neighborhood of West Seattle where the context includes a steel mill, a salmon stream and Section 8 housing, a tiny ramshackle house was incorporated into the design of a new house which is more than double in size. It was necessary for the family to live in the “cottage” while the adjacent structure dubbed the “treehouse” was built. The existing house then became the public spaces and the new structure the private. Along with a separate Studio building the residence has the feel of a family compound overlooking the creek.

Design Approach
With an extremely tight budget we set out to design an interesting volume, fill it with light and use every cubic inch of it. A considerable design challenge was to unite the two “houses” and that was done with color and materials that keep the eye moving and break the house down into an assembly of forms. The rather loose, non-dogmatic, eclectic nature of the design allows disparate elements to be brought in and accommodated. Particularly with interiors, this approach expands the aesthetic pool, allowing for individual taste within a cohesive framework: door seconds that match in spirit if not in style, hand carved columns from New Mexico, a spiral stair fabricated (for $175) by felons in the welding shop at Monroe State Prison with the wrong paint finish, (but hey OK, it is what it is).