Hasta La Ideas

A rooftop deck, an overhauled kitchen and ample glazing are among the notable features in a 50-year-old dwelling in Washington that has been renovated by US firm Wittman Estes Architecture + Landscape.

The project, Mercer Modern, takes its name from its location – Mercer Island, a land mass in a freshwater lake just west of Seattle. Nestled into a hillside, the two-storey house is afforded views of the water and the city skyline.

Designed by local firm Wittman Estes Architecture + Landscape, the project involved updating a 3,760-square-foot (349-square-metre) house that dates to 1969 and was originally designed by architect Reid A Morgan. Its overall layout was “out of sync” with the living preferences of the clients – a couple with two young children.

In particular, the clients, Melanie and Matt Owen, desired a home with a casual atmosphere and a fluid connection between the interior and the surrounding terrain. Melanie hails from Southern California, and her design sensibilities are strongly influenced by surfer culture and beach living.

“The original house had great bones but was disconnected from the outdoors and expansive property,” said architect Matt Wittman in a project description. “We wanted to give the family a way to live outside and connect with their Southern California roots.”

The design team made significant modifications both inside and out. Windows and doors were replaced in certain areas, new exterior lighting was installed, and facades were painted a creamy white. Where necessary, old columns and beams were replaced with steel columns and glue-laminated timber beams.

Atop a garage, the team created a new outdoor deck with built-in seating and ipe wood decking. Cedar slats surround the deck, allowing sunlight to filter through while blocking views from neighbouring homes. A concrete-and-glass stair connects the elevated terrace to the backyard.

Inside the dwelling, rooms were made bright and airy through the removal of walls and the addition of glazing, along with the incorporation of light-toned finishes and decor. The team collaborated with the clients – both of whom work in the fashion industry – to create a material palette that was a “hybrid of Southern California modernism and Pacific Northwest woodcraft”.

The top floor encompasses the public zone, master suite and an office, while the lower level contains private areas and the garage. The first round of interior renovations was largely focused on the dining area and kitchen. Work on additional rooms – along with outdoor spaces, including a pool terrace – is now in progress.

On the top level, the team removed a partition between the kitchen and dining room, establishing a better flow. The kitchen was gutted and reconfigured to provide a seamless connection to the elevated deck. Glazed, sliding doors enable the corner of the room to fully open up.

“The original layout was inwardly focused and lacked a connection to the outdoors,” the team said. “All the appliance locations were moved to new locations, interior walls were removed, and new open-corner, multi-slide doors were added where there were walls previously.”

The revamped kitchen features a Carrara marble island, white oak cabinetry and terrazzo tile flooring. Leather cushions line a built-in banquette, with storage space hidden below the seats. The room’s original cedar shiplap ceiling was sanded down and stained a lighter hue.

“The materials reflect the easy, relaxed nature of the redesign – opening up the heart of the home to not only the outdoors but also to natural, sustainable textures,” the team said.

“The breezy and lightweight feeling of the material palette encourages the family to step outside and connect with the sunlight, all while enjoying the views of Lake Washington and the downtown Seattle skyline.”

Wittman Estes was founded by Wittman and landscape designer Jody Estes. Other projects by the firm include a holiday home tucked into a coastal forest in Washington, and a studio building and Chinese-inspired courtyard in Seattle that was added to a 1940s home.

The firm also designed a solar-powered, prefabricated accessory dwelling wrapped in charred wood, which was created in collaboration with the Washington-based company NODE.

Photography is by Rafael Soldi.

Project credits:

Architect: Wittman Estes
Design team: Matt Wittman, Jody Estes, Hayley Snider
Structural engineer: Josh Welch Engineering
Builder: Ian Jones, Treebird Construction

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For their first-ever collaboration, Todd Snyder and heritage shoemaker Clarks Originals have reworked the classic Wallabee, a signature design that combines the moccasin and boot. The limited edition shoes reference Clarks’ origins as a rug-making company and Todd Snyder’s midwest upbringing. Employing one-of-a-kind paisley upholstery fabric for their exterior, they have a leather interior and it all sits atop the usual crepe sole. With leather and suede laces and label fobs, these Wallabees are available from size seven to 13 and are made in Italy.

Construction experts discuss the ways that the building industry can move towards having zero carbon emissions in this panel discussion filmed by Dezeen for Kingspan at the Building Centre in London.

Called Accelerating the Pathway to Net Zero Carbon Buildings, the event was hosted by architectural facade specialist Kingspan and independent research forum New London Architecture.

Moderated by AECOM‘s Tom Lelyveld, the panel of five speakers drew on academic research and industry experience to discuss how the UK could achieve its target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

A range of arguments were made on the subject, including how retrofitting existing buildings is not as sustainable as people have been led to believe and that timber is not always the solution to decarbonising the built environment.

Panellist Michael Stacey, who is a teaching fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture, argued that sometimes demolition can be more carbon efficient than retrofitting a building.

Stacey explained that refurbishing a building often means that less than half carbon is retained, with levels sometimes much lower.

“Demolition is sometimes the best option,” he stated. “In most cases, reusing existing buildings saves between four and 46 per cent of the carbon.”

In some situations it may use less carbon to demolish a building and replace it with an entirely new structure that has had sustainability considered from the outset.

“If you convert a warehouse into a multi-occupancy residential building it uses 17 per cent more carbon that a new build.”

In contrast to the advice given by speakers at the Architecture of Emergency climate summit in September, Stacey also argued that timber is not always the most sustainable material to use.

The academic believes that people may be misusing timber due to a difficulty in obtaining and interpreting life cycle analysis reports that detail the full environmental impact of a product.

“There are reputable books that say this: if you can’t understand the mathematics of life cycle analysis, specify wood. I’m afraid that it’s not correct,” he stated.

“Timber inside buildings is great because you are looking after the CO2 for as long as the life of the building, but what is not recycled is typically burnt,” he added.

In addition to emitting CO2 when it is burned at the end of its life, timber that is used on the outside of a building – especially in the case of windows – must be repainted every eight years to prevent it from rotting and releasing the carbon it has locked up, according to Stacey.

To prevent the misuse of materials, Stacey suggested that life cycle analysis reports should be made more freely available.

The panel also featured Allies and Morrison director Mark Taylor, Kingspan‘s global head of sustainability Bianca Wong, Sean Butler of metal facade supplier Schüco, and Billy Field from Dane Architectural.

In addition to making the science behind carbon emissions more transparent, the panel also advised that the introduction of legislation and government-backed financial incentives would contribute significantly to attaining the UK’s aim of net zero carbon.

Taylor is the director of architecture practice Allies and Morrison. The London-based firm is one of the signatories of Architects Declare – a campaign signed by more than 700 architecture practices across the UK declaring a biodiversity and climate emergency.

Wong is the global head of sustainability at Kingspan and is leading the specialist building facade company in attaining its goal to become a net zero carbon business by 2020.

Butler is the commercial director of Schüco, an international building facade supplier that aims to facilitate harmony between buildings, their users and nature.

Field is the director of Dane Architectural, a facade specialist that has provided the exterior components of buildings by Grimshaw Architects and Steven Holl Architects.

The talk is the latest example of built environment professionals addressing their own carbon emissions in order to combat climate change. Last month, Dezeen hosted a conference in which environmental designer Sophie Thomas conducted an analysis of the carbon emitted by the event, while Stirling Prize-winning architect Mikhail Riches pledged to work on zero-carbon projects.

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Next up in our high-tech architecture guide, we look at Portcullis House in London, which demonstrated how the style could be used in historically sensitive locations.

Built opposite the Palace of Westminster, Portcullis House is an office building designed by Michael and Patty Hopkins’ studio, now called Hopkins Architects, as offices for the UK Parliament.

The building is six-storeys high and, like other buildings of the high-tech architecture style, has its services and structure expressed externally.

In the case of Portcullis House, this is marked by a roof lined with ventilation chimneys, a glass-roofed atrium and a robust substructure that is visible within the London Underground tube station it sits above.

Portcullis House was the result of a space audit of parliament carried out by the Hopkins’ studio in 1988, which suggested there was an urgent need for more office space for members of parliament (MPs).

Four years later, Parliament commissioned the studio to develop the office to accommodate 213 MPs and their staff.

The brief demanded an ultra-low energy building, which would also complement its setting in a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the Palace of Westminster. The Palace includes the Houses of Parliament and London landmarks such as Elizabeth Tower, often referred to as Big Ben.

It also asked that the building be designed in conjunction with the Westminster tube station, which was built directly below the building.

Porticullis House was designed with structural engineer Arup, and is built largely from prefabricated elements – a staple of high-tech architecture – which allowed for quick assembly.

Its form and structure is organised around a central atrium, which is positioned in line with the ticket hall of the Westminster Underground station.

The building is supported by six huge foundation piles, which extend down through the station’s ticket hall.

Where these piles meet the courtyard, they emerge above ground to support a series of concrete arches that form the sides of the atrium.

The arches also provide structural support for a huge glass canopy that covers the atrium and is further supported by a grid of steel and oak.

The high-tech style of Portcullis House is also evident externally, where fourteen tall, bronze chimneys line its roof. Thirteen of these chimneys are used for natural ventilation, while the fourteenth is a flue for mechanical systems.

They are all positioned on the roof due to a lack of underground space, but by echoing the aesthetic of the chimneys of the adjacent Norman Shaw building and Palace of Westminster, they help the building relate to its setting.

The chimneys are positioned on top of a series of box girders that double as air ducts and form a spider-like pattern on its roof. These box girders then rest on prestressed sandstone columns expressed on the building’s facade.

Between the sandstone columns, the studio also developed prefabricated high-tech cladding, including ducting, windows, sun-shading and a “light shelf”.

The atrium is complete with trees and water features, with a secure underpass that links the courtyard to the Houses of Parliament.

The rest of the ground floor, which surrounds the atrium, features an open arcade that extends along the two street frontages, sheltering the entrance to the tube station and a row of shops.

The upper floors of Portcullis House are populated with offices around its perimeter, which tail off from a corridor that looks down into the atrium through the glass roof.

All the interior finishes are designed to look and feel like a ship – with bowed windows and light oak finishing.

Portcullis House is complete with boreholes that use groundwater for cooling, which is one of the reasons it received a BREEAM Excellent rating – the highest available at the time of its completion. It was also nominated for the 2001 Stirling Prize.

Led by architects Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Nicholas Grimshaw, Michael and Patty Hopkins and Piano, high-tech architecture was the last major style of the 20th century and one of its most influential.

Our high-tech series celebrates its architects and buildings ›

Photography is courtesy of Hopkins Architects. Illustration is by Jack Bedford.

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Située sur une légère pente à la lisière d’une forêt, la maison YORK est un autre chef-d’œuvre architectural remarquable de l’architecte russe Alex Nerovnya.

Fidèle à son style, il utilise des formes géométriques de manière inhabituelle. La maison est conçue pour associer une architecture époustouflante à une ouverture sur la nature. Avec un mur entièrement en verre et d’énormes portes coulissantes, cette maison de trois étages et de quatre chambres à coucher capture l’essence de la vie simple. Simple ne veut pas dire ennuyeux, comme le prouvent les vues panoramiques vues depuis la fenêtre du magnifique paysage environnant.