New Sitka Cottage: 3-bedroom DADU

At 1,000 net square feet, the Sitka Cottage features three bedrooms and two baths upstairs, an open living room and kitchen, storage, and an additional powder room tucked away on the first floor.  It fits flexibly on many sites with a walk-out terrace off the living room/kitchen. The three bedrooms upstairs are reasonably sized and work well for a family. Standard, wood-frame construction, vented shed roof, slab-on-grade foundation, careful placement of windows, and a simple exterior allow for low-cost construction without sacrificing durability, function, or style.

The design is under the height limit and can fit on standard to small lots, around trees, or on sloped lots, with space for adjacent parking if desired. The cottage can be oriented toward the principal residence for multi-generational living around a courtyard. The front door is on the corner and can be placed on either the short or long side of the design, depending on site orientation.

The design targets 4-Star Built Green, with details for reduced air infiltration, energy-efficient heating, cooling and water heating systems, passive solar heat gain in window/shading in summer, low-VOC finishes, no fossil fuel appliances, and all LED lighting.

See more at CASTcottages.com

Cross-Laminated Timber Berm House in Washington's Methow Valley

The Berm House is a private residence that doubles as the common house and gathering space for a 19 house mixed-income community in Washington’s Methow Valley. The house is set into the landscape, with a panoramic view of the farmland down valley, but hidden from the road by a berm that ramps up onto and across the roof. 

The south-facing building orientation optimizes winter solar exposure coupled with large overhangs to protect from snowfall and the intense summer sun. The home is post and beam structure with a cross-laminated timber (CLT) roof prefabricated in northeastern Washington. The design incorporates Passive House principles including managing seasonal heat gain from solar exposure, advanced air sealing, and mechanical ventilation. Thermal bridges are minimized by wrapping the house in continuous external insulation, including structural EPS under the foundation, isolating the home from outdoor temperature swings. The earthen roof adds thermal mass, wildfire protection, and a promontory to take in the down valley vista.

The great room portion of the house was designed for friends and neighbors to gather, share meals, and be a social center for the community. Off the great room, a five-foot wide hall leads to three guest suites and the primary suite. The uncomplicated and efficient floor plan shows a clear division between the private and public spaces. The mechanical room, pantry, storage, guest bath, and laundry spaces are arranged along the berm side of the house’s section.

The material palette is predominately warm woods. The CLT ceiling and glulam posts and beams were manufactured nearby, and a coffee table and kitchen bar were crafted locally from a fir tree felled on the property. The exterior employs the Japanese shou sugi ban preservation technique. The boulders throughout the site and as part of the berm were pulled from the site and placed by the owner. 

Team
Owner: Lee Whittaker
Methow Housing Trust
Architect: CAST architecture
Contractor: Methow Valley Builders 
CLT: Vaagen Timbers
Concrete subcontractor: JR’s Five Star Concrete
Geotechnical Engineering: GeoEngineers

See more here.

Hawthorne Hills Three:
Single-family residence, ADU & DADU

This project renovates an existing home and adds an attached accessory dwelling unit (AADU), and a detached accessory dwelling unit (DADU) to thoughtfully develop this single-family home into three rental units in the desirable Hawthorne Hills neighborhood of Seattle. It brings forward a model of urban density, providing much needed ‘missing middle’ housing. The exterior of the two buildings is unified in onyx-grey fiber cement siding with cedar accent areas. The home is 4-Star BuiltGreen certified.

The main home, with three bedrooms at 1,150SF, is renovated for modern living. The kitchen features three skylights that maximize natural light and brighten the core of the home. The original warm oak floors were refinished and unify the spaces.

The 410SF AADU takes advantage of the original house’s slightly set back position on the lot to build a new unit to the front and side setback.  The entry opens to the bright kitchen and living space. Within the compact footprint, a hallway through the utility room leads to the bathroom and a separate bedroom.

The backyard cottage is a 1000SF two-story home. Situated on the lot for privacy, a private walkway leads to the front door. The DADU boasts three bedrooms with vaulted ceilings on the top floor. Downstairs, a generous great room and kitchen with expansive glass doors open to the patio and private backyard. The efficient, open plan and bonus storage add to the versatility of the home.

See more here.

TEAM
Builder: Cadre  General Contractors
Civil: Davido Consulting Group/Watershed
Survey: Terrane
Structural Engineer: Owen Gould
GeoTechnical: Cobalt GeoSciences
Andersen Windows & Doors

Photography: Peter Bohler

New tribal Hatchery & Beach Shelter

At the beach at Point Julia on land occupied by the tribe since time immemorial, the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe’s Hatchery and Beach Shelter combines pragmatic uses with symbolic content. Salmon fishing is central to the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe’s traditional identity and its contemporary outlook. The new 1,800 SF two-story building accommodates both office and utility space for the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe’s salmon hatchery program, along with a separate open-air structure used by the Tribe’s commercial fishing operations. This project recognizes the cultural importance of both the place—a focal point of their history—and the program, while providing solutions to allow these activities to flourish in the 21st century.

The lower level of the Hatchery houses a garage, maintenance shop, and egg-incubation room with equipment that is both durable and moveable. The upper floor contains offices, water-quality testing, and filtration equipment. The conference room on the southwest corner can be entered separately, accessible to the wider community.

The new hatchery forms a gateway to the beach from the landward side, and the beach shelter is the Tribe’s front door on the sea. It will provide a work area for fishermen who pull their boats onto the beach and will also provide recreation space for the community. On the beach between the two structures, the native landscape is being restored, along with traditional edible and medicinal plants, and salt-tolerant erosion control plantings.

See more here.

TEAM
Owner: Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe
Architecture: CAST architecture
Photography: Lara Swimmer
Contractor:  Pacific Civil & Infrastructure
Geo-tech: Robinson Noble
Structural: Swenson Say Faget
MEP: Glumac
Civil: Cannon
Landscape Architect: Pacific Landscape Architecture
Windows: Jeld-Wen  
Archeologist: Willamette Cultural Resources
Survey: AES Consultants
Intake System Engineer: Kleinschmidt Group
Specifications: Applied Building Information
Art/light installation: S’Klallam artist Jimmy Price
Conference table / Entry bench: Craig Kohring

STATE MODEL CODE FOR MIDDLE HOUSING IS MISSING ENOUGH HOUSING

BY MATT HUTCHINS (GUEST CONTRIBUTOR)

See full article and graphics here: https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/07/10/state-model-code-for-middle-housing-is-missing-enough-housing/

Commerce recently had a consultant create a form-based code, but the draft fails to advance housing abundance.

Now that Washington State’s Middle Housing bill (HB1110) has been signed into law, the next question is what implementation will look like — what kind of housing and where. The Department of Commerce has published a request for consultants to draft a model code that 1) will help jurisdictions write their own compliant middle housing code or 2) will supersede local zoning if they fail to implement their own in advance of the deadline (six months after their comprehensive planning update).

While we don’t know what cities and towns are thinking, we do have a picture of how Commerce is approaching the middle housing code. Last fall, Commerce hired a consultant to “inform about and assist local governments with middle housing policies, regulations, and programs.” 

In May, a focus group of planners, developers, and architects previewed a draft ‘Toolkit’ that illustrates four strategies that local governments could overlay on their residential zoning to allow new denser housing types within existing detached single family neighborhoods. The foundation of this toolkit is a form-based code meant to create ‘objective’ standards for middle housing that can be applied widely.

The issue is that the toolkit, rather than solving for affordability, feasibility, and the lowest carbon footprint, is primarily focused on crafting development guidelines that will keep new infill development the size of average houses and thus minimize the outcry from vocal neighbors. While this might be an easier to swallow approach for Washington cities and towns, it doesn’t scale up to address the deeper issues that HB 1110 was passed to address: the massive shortfall of new places for people to live. 

While Commerce’s original intent was to come up with instructive materials broadly applicable to most local governments, the effort lags behind what more progressive jurisdictions are already doing. But when we dig into the details, the toolkit suggests real reductions in development capacity: smaller footprints, bigger setbacks, and lower roof heights than are currently allowed in many Puget Sound cities. At its very worst, it will give slow-growth municipalities the option to select a new zoning overlay that is more prescriptive and restrictive, thus spoiling any chance that any new middle housing will be built.

Let’s go through the proposed new toolkit and look at some of the underlying flaws. 

• They state, “This toolkit does not provide standards for buildings taller than three stories.” For three of the four overlays in the Toolkit, buildings are conceived as two and a half stories with a height bonus for hip and gable roofs –  less that most of Washington cities’ least dense residential zones today. Rather than proposing an actual incremental increase, it ignores the status quo as a starting point. If you want a single pitch ‘shed’ roof, the 22-foot height limit is actually less than what we allow for a backyard cottage in Seattle today.

• Parking is mandated throughout the toolkit, a reversal for many jurisdictions that are moving away from required off street parking. Indeed one of the strengths of HB 1110 is releasing parking restrictions for new housing.

• Most overlay zones top out at four units per parcel, equivalent to Seattle’s second least dense zone, Residential Small Lot. Much of the ‘middle’ housing that is missing is between a house-sized triplex and the ‘5 over 1’ medium-sized apartment building. While this toolkit focuses on redundant standards for housing types we already allow, like townhouses and triplexes, it is silent on helping planners visualize appropriately-scaled urban buildings that might have between six to twenty units.

• Townhomes today, for better or worse, are the least expensive middle housing alternative available in the market, and the toolkit hamstrings their development with provisions that limit the number per building and the building length. The most successful rowhouse style homes on corner lots wouldn’t comply.

• The toolkit increases barriers for sites with multiple buildings on a single site, which would render many currently popular types of middle housing, such as detached townhouses, cottage clusters in Residential Small Lot zoning, and arguably even detached accessory dwelling units nearly impossible to build on compact urban lots.  

• The toolkit does not provide flexibility for sites that might want to preserve existing housing and build more. It assumes parcels are cleared rather than provide provisions for new buildings in the backyard, lot splitting, or additions that add units.

• While much of today’s urban design discourse is centered around neighborhoods where goods and services are accessible within a 15-minute walk or roll, the toolkit doesn’t have any provisions for mixed uses like daycares, commercial suites or corner stores.

• Finally, as one gets into the details of each overlay, it is chock full of reductions: larger setbacks, less lot coverage, less height, larger minimum lot areas, prescriptive design standards – each taking a bite out of the viability of future housing. When we compared a fourplex we’re currently designing in Spokane against the toolkit, we’d need to reduce the footprint by 32%, lose the front and back porches, and downgrade the 2-bedroom units to 1-bedrooms.  

• Unlocking the residential potential of urban land is critical if we’re going to provide the more than 1.1 million homes Washington State projects we’ll need over the next 20 years, and that means reintroducing multi-family housing types that exclusionary zoning has regulated out of existence.
  
  With this upcoming model code, we can take a good hard look at how new infill development is built, but we first have to move past the idea that middle housing is house-sized buildings carved into more apartments, or cottage clusters. Overall, the toolkit’s conceptual limitations and prescriptive ‘objective standards’ don’t reflect the real conditions of Washington neighborhoods.  

  A more serious effort would worry less about what neighbors might think and center our goals of housing abundance and climate action leading with middle housing types that work all the way up to four- and five-story mid-sized buildings in keeping with the best practices of urban planning around the world. Washington needs a flexible model code that supports the big picture goals of abundant housing.

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

WA State legislature passes SB 5491 single-stair bill

As we struggle with the construction cost of housing across the state and look to make building middle housing more affordable and abundant, the building code can sometimes add unnecessary complexity without adding any benefit to life safety. 

In Seattle for the last fifty years or so, we’ve had a provision for small multifamily buildings that can eliminate one of the two typical stairs under very strict, prescriptive conditions: four units per floor, sprinklered buildings, fire-resistance-rated construction, quick access to a protected exit or to the street.  These aren’t high rises or big apartment blocks.

Small apartment buildings should be the building block for middle housing and the single-stair provision makes many more sites feasible and gives architects more flexibility to design great buildings.  

We have designed four of these small apartment buildings, varying from four to ten units.  The sites are small urban infill, and a second stair would have probably killed the projects.  On many infill sites, having a second stairwell means fewer windows for residents, fewer units, less ventilation, more blank exterior walls, and ultimately higher rent for residents because the buildings are much less efficient.  

Senate Bill 5491 legalizes single-stair apartment buildings up to six stories. It will require the State Building Code Council (SBCC) to develop recommendations for these buildings and adopt the changes by July 2026. 

The SBCC must convene a technical advisory group to recommend modifications and limitations to the International Building Code (IBC) that would allow for a single exit stairway to serve multifamily residential structures up to six stories.

The recommendations must include:
• considerations for adequate and available water supply
• the presence and response time of the fire department
• any other provisions necessary to ensure public health, safety, and general welfare

Six-to-twelve-plexes offer a superior urban experience, more housing units, more housing variety, and at least some fully accessible housing units. They also may preserve more tree canopy, increase open space, and optimize daylight compared to townhomes. These homes will push the bounds of the single-family envelope but maintain an urbanism-friendly street frontage.

As one of the region's leading voices for abundant and affordable housing choices, we advocate for smart density and missing middle housing. More efficient land use is critical to address our housing crisis, climate change, and persistent inequities in access to housing opportunities.

An array of CAST’s detached accessory dwelling units (DADUs)

Statewide efforts to boost housing options make headway

This past legislative session, several bills made it through both houses and each will have long term benefits for the production of urban infill housing types such as cottages, ADUs, and small stacked apartment buildings.

HB 1337

The passing of HB 1337 expands housing options by easing barriers to the construction and use of ADUs.

·        legalizes two ADUs per lot in any configuration of attached/detached

·        legalizes an ADU on any lot size that’s legal for a house

·        legalizes ADU size up to at least 1,000 SF 

·        legalizes ADU height up to 24 feet

·        ends requirement for owner to live on site

·        caps impact fees at 50% of those charged on houses

·        lifts parking mandates within 1/2-mile or 15 minutes from transit stop

·        prohibits design standards or other restrictions more stringent than what applies to the main house 

·        legalizes ADUs to abutting property lines on alleys

·        legalizes ADUs in existing structures that violate current rules for setbacks or lot coverage

·        prohibits requirements for public right of way improvements

·        legalizes the sale of ADUs as condominiums

HB 1110

The Middle Housing Bill will mandate that medium and large cities create development standards for their lowest density zones to accommodate more housing.  For Seattle, it means:

·        Up to 4 units on any parcel not previously limited by an HOA or PUD.

·        Up to 6 units on parcels that are within ½ mile (a 10 minute walk) of frequent or fixed transit

·        Up to 6 units on any parcel if 2 are designated as affordable. 

The form that these new housing types will be open ended, but the Department of Commerce is busy developing a model code for cities to use as a starting point.  The deadline for cities to comply is 6 months after their next comprehensive plan cycle (for Seattle that is mid 2025). 

Spokane Four

As one of the region's leading voices for abundant and affordable housing choices, we have been advocating for backyard cottages—accessory dwelling units (ADUs)—since Seattle first considered them citywide in 2009.

More efficient land use is critical to address our housing crisis, climate change, and persistent inequities in access to housing opportunities. Modest infill houses like ADUs are a key strategy to empower citizens to provide new housing, build generational wealth, and leverage taxpayers’ investment in infrastructure, transit, schools, and parks. 

A “People Place” by Design
The Mazama Public House was conceived with community in mind.

“The long communal tables were always indicative of the way we were thinking about the place. You come in and you’re part of the community. You share a table and suddenly you’re in conversation with a person you’ve never met before. It’s a fun opportunity.”
-- Stefan Hampden, CAST architecture

See the full article here on Issue.

This pub is the new gathering spot for the community of Mazama, at the north end of Washington’s Methow Valley.  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. In warm weather, a garage door system opens for a seamless connection to the outdoor decks. The height of the shed roof and the expansive windows on two sides are sited to take advantage of natural light and views toward Goat Peak. 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.

Green design features the use of highly durable siding materials including a mix of locally harvested wood from the Methow Valley and Boise Cascade products. The generous overhangs were designed to protect the siding from wear and tear. Full LED lighting was installed.

📸@benjdrummond
📸@mitchellimage

@mazamapub
Architect: CAST architecture
Owner: Grumpy Goats, LLC
Operator: Old Schoolhouse Brewery @oldschoolhousebrewery
Contractor: Bjornsen Construction, Tom Bjornsen                                    
Structural: Harriott Valentine Engineers @harriottvalentine
Lighting: LightWire @ltwire
Windows & doors: @sierrapacificwindows  

Edelweiss House in the Methow Valley

This home, on two acres, near Mazama in the Methow Valley, was sited to take maximum advantage of a south-facing orientation. Its horseshoe shape creates a courtyard between the wings of the home which is cooler in the summer and cozy with a fire pit in the winter. The home’s design highlights the indoor/outdoor relationship that characterizes Methow Valley life.

The twelve-foot-high bank of windows and NanaWall in the great room face southwest and provide transparency through the home, while framing valley and mountain views. The interior wood ceiling extends out through the overhang above the veranda, further drawing the eye out and bringing in the outdoors. The roof height was intentional, to protect from the summer heat, and allow winter sun in to warm up the space.

A centerline from the kitchen to the fireplace wall is a nod to formality. The chandelier anchors the space from either side patios and the kitchen/living room axis. The open kitchen, clad in local Douglas fir, was designed for those social interactions that happen best around food.

The primary bedroom wing includes one bedroom, bathroom, walk-in closet with laundry room and doggie bed, and connection to the outdoor dog run. Obscure glass and a built-in Douglas fir headboard create the shared wall with the bathroom, bringing in extra light to the spaces.

On the opposite side, the utility wing starts just off the kitchen with a pantry and food prep area. A multipurpose room includes space for a guest bedroom with Murphy bed and built-in cabinetry, an office, and a game area. The area can be separated by a pocketed curtain.

Photos: Andrew Giammarco

See Portrait Magazine’s feature on Edelweiss House here.

TEAM
Bjornsen Construction‎
Evans Concrete Construction
B&B Excavating
A & J Electric
NanaWall Systems
Harriott Valentine Engineers
Johnsen Steel Works
Sierra Pacific Windows