Beacon Hill Cedar Cottage is one of CAST’s City of Seattle Pre-approved cottage plans

Designed by CAST and built by the homeowner who is also a contractor, Beacon Hill Cedar Cottage includes the amenities and feel of a larger home. Its efficient footprint provides two bedrooms, well-daylit spaces, lots of storage, and a covered outdoor living area.

Bathed in sunlight, a generous central area includes the kitchen, dining, and living spaces. Carefully placed large windows and glass entry doors flood the area with light that bounces off the white walls to make it feel larger than its square footage. The open glass doors and deep eaves create a vibrant indoor/outdoor living experience.

The durable Japanese cypress exterior is treated using the traditional Shou Sugi Ban technique, ensuring both beauty and natural resilience.

With two bedrooms, and maximized storage throughout, there is plenty of room to keep things close at hand to pursue hobbies and work from home.

Square Feet: 707 + 147 SF patio

Photos: Peter Bohler Photography + Director
Shou Sugi Ban exterior: Nakamoto Forestry
Windows: Marvin  

See More: Beacon Hill Cedar Cottage

Mazama Public House at the north end of Washington’s Methow Valley

mazama public house in the Methow valley community

The Mazama Public House is set to become the gathering spot for the community of Mazama, at the north end of Washington’s Methow Valley. Oriented toward Goat Peak mountain views, the 1,868 square foot public house is designed to seat 56 and another 50 outside with built-in benches on the four-season covered patio.

An expansive three-door door system opens in the summer months for a seamless connection to the outdoor decks. The indoor area incorporates performance space, and the large garage doors allow for flexibility and increased seating capacity. The height of the shed roof and the expansive windows on two sides are sited to take advantage of natural light and views. The interior features wood beams punctuated by blackened steel and concrete floors. Custom tables and bar slabs were crafted from locally sourced Douglas-fir. Outside, blackened steel will accent the wood structure. The siding is a dark-stained, rough-sawn vertical channel shiplap.

See more on our website.

Photos by: Benjamin Drummond Photography www.benjandsara.com

This recently completed residence in the Issaquah Highlands, 20 miles east of Seattle, enjoys spectacular views. A big part of our role here was to know when to get out of the way!

A central circulation spine screens private zones while channeling visitors towards the open kitchen-living-dining area. With its subtle nods to Japanese traditions, the house is as much about choreography as building

More intimate framed views of the contemplative garden and the art collection provide contrast before the vista finally opens completely at the rear of the house.

Generous overhangs and deliberately engineered cross-ventilation provide effective passive cooling and weather protection for this mountaintop site.

PROJECT TEAM

CAST Architecture:  Stefan Hampden, Matt  Hutchins, Forrest Murphy

Add’l Design:  Eric Oliner

Calista Interiors:  Calista Munnell

Stoney Point Engineering (Structural): Dwayne Barnes

Core Design Inc. (Geotechnical & Civil): Glenn Sprague

BDR Custom Homes:  Steven Jewett

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Here are some photos of the Saratoga House--just need some landscaping!

Outdoor dining room off the kitchen

View from the family room to the breakfast bar and kitchen beyond

The Big Island

The Big Island again.

The breakfast bar's single support--custom fabricated stainless steel. 

The view from the front door, looking up the walnut/glass/steel staircase

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Our Saratoga House is suddenly feeling much more put together--most of the cabinetry is in, the stone tile is completed throughout the interior, split face stone going up the arcade columns.  Stucco and the metal roof are on the horizon.

The interior of the house is very open, very connected to the backyard. Not yet installed is the eating bar which will come out parallel with the kitchen island, and supported on a stainless steel tripod.  The staircase is wrapped in more cabinets, with stainless and glass railings.

See more photos after the jump:

We'll be wrapping the arcade roof with standing seam metal all the way around, running the split face limestone up the columns, and matching up the interior stone tile with the exterior tile (same stone, but a change in texture for better footing outside).  The drain in front of the Weiland doors is going to be very understated--a 1/2" slot between courses.

The island is 14' long, 4 1/2' wide--two butterflied slabs of 'Silver Wave' marble.  As the focal point of the kitchen, and the center of family life/entertaining, we really took it over the top!

The cabinet wall is highlighted by a linear skylight.

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The ceilings and soffits will be high gloss white aluminum panels. We installed a plywood underlayment to simplify panel layout and minimize panel distortion.

All photos are courtesy of Phil Dietz / Lost River Construction.

This photo is looking down the entry veranda toward the front door:

Looking from the front door toward the sauna wing and entry veranda:

Completed plywood underlay in the great room:

First panels go up in the Master bedroom:

Master bedroom ceiling complete:

Detail of fasteners:

Recent rendering put together for an advertisement:

We finally have finished our plywood box wall! The light catches the plywood grain a little differently, highlighting the alternating orientation.Custom steel stairs to the mezzanine pinned off the concrete, are the next undertaking.

The depth of the boxes are modulated to create niches for models, samples and audiovisual equipment.

I am building a little painting studio in my backyard, and wanted to try out 'shou-sugi-ban,' a traditional japanese technique of burning the wood siding to create a thin charcoal layer to protect the wood, in lieu of staining/painting.

I tied three boards together in a triangle with baling wire, and stood the bundles on a small fire.  The fire wicks up the inside of the bundle after about a minute, with flames coming out of the top after about two minutes.  I then flipped the bundle, burnt from the other end for another 30-45 seconds.

Once I had the surface fully burnt, I laid them down, clipped the wire and extinguished the fire.  I had to use a blow torch to touch up the areas along the edge that didn't get charred.  I have seen some people use a roofer's torch to blacken the surface, then brush off the soot and apply Penofin, but I wanted the full charcoal layer.

And here is the shed with the siding up!

It was a bit of an adventure to maneuver the 8' planks while they are on fire, and messy to deal with (since I kept the charcoal layer intact), but I love the texture and the way it shifts between silver and black in the light.

Thank you to all our friends and colleagues that came out last night to help us celebrate our new office space!  Standing room only!  Now if only one of us had thought to snap a picture when the crowd was actually there....

Since we haven't decided what to do with the big wall that separates the desks from the conference/copy space, we took all the recycled moving boxes, cut them down on the table saw, then glued them up, thus recycling them again.   Perfect for the party!

Kate and Ric have begun construction on their backyard cottage... They have been working hard the last few weeks and have enlisted the help of a few friends and colleagues along the way. A few key players have been helping guide us through the process:

• Rusty Borromeo of Borromeo Construction LLC is providing his general contractor and construction expertise
• James Jenkins of O'Brien & Company is contributing his green building knowledge and will be our Built Green Verifier  - we are aiming for 5 star Built Green certification
• Cory Fraser of LFD Structural Engineering LLC provided the calculations and engineering for our plan set

Ric has been doing a wonderful job of photographing the process and has put together a few galleries of the construction process thus far (all images in this post are © 2010 Ric Cochrane). He has also agreed to write up a blog post on the experience thus far - so stay tuned for that!

DECONSTRUCTION GALLERY An existing shed (that was a bit worse for wear) was painstakingly deconstructed and all reusable and recyclable materials were sorted and stacked

LABOR OF LOVE - THE FOUNDATION Digging in the dirt and other fun activities - the true definition of 'sweat equity!'

LUMBER FROM THE BONE-YARD Salvaged beams, columns and decking are being purchased from Bruce Borjesson of Pacific Resources