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.

Seattle architect talks about the BENEFITS OF LIVING IN A TINY HOME

CAST is featured in ISN’s article: Tiny Home vs. Traditional Home: What You Need to Know

Tiny homes and small space living offer a bevy of rewards to those who decide they don’t need many things and are ready to streamline their life. There are many reasons to choose small space living. Some people may want a house that moves with them, to not have a mortgage, or simply to live lightly. 

Lower Energy Usage

Tiny homes consume less energy and cost less to maintain. Smaller appliances are typically more efficient. One will use less energy, and water, and create less waste. A tiny home could potentially be heated with a wood stove and powered by a solar array. 

It Costs Less 

Tiny homes cost a fraction of the price of traditional homes. The cost to own or rent will be significantly less and they cost less to maintain. Since small spaces use less energy, there will be less outlay on all bills related to the home. Reducing housing expenses may let owners/tenants save money for (or in) retirement, travel, or allow them to decide to work less.

Streamlined Maintenance

A tiny home is easier to maintain. With fewer appliances to repair, less exterior area to maintain and even less space to clean, those who live in small spaces may have more time to spend on work, fun hobbies, and their relationships.

Mobility

Tiny Homes can be made to be mobile. Whether it’s a vacation or a new permanent spot, a tiny home can be built to travel.

Minimalist lifestyle

De-clutter. There is only room for the important things and those things that matter most. Plus, there is also the opportunity for more focus and less distraction. A tiny home can be constructed from recycled, repurposed, and salvaged items.

Eco-friendly living lifestyle

By using less energy tiny homeowners reduce their carbon footprint. There is only room for vital appliances, so you save on electricity bills. Also, there is the potential for minimal expense on a rainwater collection system and composting toilet. The tiny home can be designed to be completely off-grid.

Photos by: Cindy Apple Photography

A Seattle Detached Accessory Dwelling Unit

Sustainable living in a tiny home

CAST is featured in Porch’s round-up: Everything About Tiny Living: Tips From the Experts

We are rethinking space and home. CAST believes tiny homes, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), and backyard cottages are inherently sustainable building options, as well as sensible answers to the housing crisis. Tiny homes require fewer materials to build, create less waste, and use less energy to power, heat, and cool when compared to traditional single-family houses. 

In addition, people who live in tiny houses will own fewer possessions and spend less overall. Downsizing will influence lifestyle in many ways—streamlining possessions, becoming more mobile, and building financial security—which leads to a lower carbon footprint. Typically, as one moves into a tiny home, other segments of life change positively as well including overall consumption of goods, services, and even food. And this, in turn, reduces the impact on the environment. Specifically, with carbon footprint in mind, the factor that will have the most impact is the size of the home.

Good design matters. Our backyard cottages are designed to be energy efficient, low cost, and built for privacy within their context. Daylighting is important in every home and especially in small spaces. Effective storage is essential. Layering and overlapping are key to designing successful small spaces while using different materials will create well-defined areas. Plan to maximize every square foot in common living areas and integrate outdoor space. Covering outdoor space makes it feel like an extension of the home, without having to heat or cool it.

Density and more efficient land use are critical to addressing our housing crisis, climate change, and persistent inequities in access to housing. Modest infill houses like tiny homes, ADUs, and backyard cottages are a key strategy to empower citizens to provide new housing, build generational wealth, and leverage taxpayers’ investment in infrastructure, transit, schools, and parks. Plus, these homes could create an affordable housing inventory.

Photo, above: Cindy Apple Photography
Photo, below: Benjamin Drummond Photography

A functional and sustainable tiny home in Washington’s Methow Valley

See more of this tiny home on our website.

Central to the name, identification and restoration of wetland habitat was central to the Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetlands. The location of all site improvements, including agricultural fields, buildings, roads, parking, and other farm infrastructure, was dictated by the need to not only avoid riparian zones, but to facilitate their enhancement. Rather than treating this as a limitation, our team of Landscape Architects, Architects, and Civil and Environmental Engineers used the wetlands at the center of the site as an organizing principle that strengthened the project.

Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetland

complex sites

Finding the right place to build the Icicle Creek Retreat within a 22-acre private inholding in the Wenatchee National Forest required a careful and deliberate process. CAST worked closely with a wetland biologist and a geotechnical engineer to identify a buildable site, triangulating between several types of stream and wetland buffers, geological hazard areas, location of access roads, and forest fire safety concerns. The project required both SEPA review and Conditional Use Permit approval through the Chelan County Hearings Examiner.

Icicle Creek Retreat in the Wenatchee Forest, Washington

The Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe Hatchery Building is located on the beach in a known archaeological site. CAST worked closely with the Tribe’s Cultural Resources team to develop an amendment to the Tribe’s Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) permit and to incorporate the resultant Monitoring and Discovery Plan (MDP) into the project specifications. Located in the intertidal zone, the design required close coordination with Structural and Geo-Technical engineers to ensure that the building will be resistant to higher tide levels predicted to occur with rising sea levels.

Rendering of Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe Beach Shelter and Hatchery Building in the distance

siting the berm house in washington’s Methow valley

Bermed into a meadow, the Berm House has a low profile and opens to the valley panorama of mountains and agricultural fields. The south-facing building orientation optimizes passive heating, and the large overhang protects from snowfall and intense summer sun. The home is post and beam structure with a cross-laminated timber (CLT) roof, prefabricated in northeastern Washington. Thermal bridges are minimized by wrapping the house in continuous external insulation, including under the foundation, isolating the home from outdoor temperature swings. The bermed roof, with 12-inches of soil, adds thermal mass and protection from weather exposure.

Download it here: New Housing Options in Residential Small Lot (RSL) zone.

We are very excited to begin a new project for the Sunset Hill neighborhood to transform an abandoned City Light substation parcel into a pocket park.  Based on the input from the community thus far, the program is very intriguing:  a community space with an artist-in-residence caretaker, powered by a serious photovoltaic array. There may be more or different elements as the project evolves in the community design process, and as we navigate through various City agencies and funding sources, but fundamentally this has all the values we expound as a firm:  sustainable building, energized public space, housing options/density, and  an interactive process that invests people in the civic life of their neighborhood.

In 2008, I designed a structure with a similar program for a Dwell Magazine conceptual competition:

Set at the east end of Crissy Field in San Francisco, this Community Room/Exhibit Hall creates an anchor for a new sculpture park. The hall is a multipurpose space, more infrastructure than building--for public events, private events, exhibits, etc. The glass sliding panels open the hall to the public, the park and the views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

A small caretaker's residence is situated on the second floor, using the broad roof of the Community Room as a vegetable garden, eliminating the conflict between the public park and the private residence. The glass screen walls provides security, and electricity--the design on the glass is created with a photovoltaic interlayer, which powers the house and hall. Stormwater is captured, stored and used to irrigate the roof garden.

While this little conceptual project may help to inform the Sunset Substation, I'm excited to apply some of this experience in designing a real world pocket park.

Stay tuned....

We are very excited to see this survey of Seattle's urban community gardens, especially since the Interbay P-Patch is included as one of the case studies.  The P-Patch is one of my personal favorites because of the impact it has had in strengthening this vital community, and has been instrumental in showing other neighborhoods how to implement their own community garden.

Further, the P-Patch really showed us just how satisfying working on these small pro bono projects can be. Since the P-Patch, we'll donated about 5% of our yearly output to pro bono causes, including daycares, parks, and community centers and hope that we'll have more opportunities to help concerned citizen groups visualize and build a better city.

Our installation just got linked on the Stranger's SLOG.

The big opening is tonight from 5 to 9, between 1st and 2nd just south of Pioneer Square--

Yesterday we hoisted the installation in place. While we still have to do lighting, the impact is great! From the end of the alley, the installation looks like a lonely cloud hovering there, and only once you get beneath it can you see the message "WASTE NOT."