Greenwood resident Kate Lichtenstein contacted us last spring to help her design a backyard studio / guest house for her modest 650 square foot 1920's one bedroom home (shown above). While the home's scale fits nicely with Kate's desire to have a simple and ecologically responsible lifestyle it falls a little short when it comes to a rough and ready workshop space for art, bicycle repair, ski tuning and building projects. Kate's home also lacks the space for a home office / guest room - something that she would like to integrate into the new structure.

Our initial goal was to have her project under construction by late summer 2009 but we were unable to get the project off the ground by that time. In hindsight, the stalling of the project turned out to be a stroke of luck...

In March of 2009 Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels proposed legislation that would allow Seattle homeowners to construct backyard cottages on their property. The legislation was reviewed and ultimately passed by the Seattle city council on November 2nd 2009 (with a 9 to 0 vote too! Kudos to Seattle voters for electing progressive urbanists for city council members!).

For Kate the ordinance has opened up new possibilities for a structure that can both accommodate her current needs and provide a potential source of income as a rental unit if her finances ever fall on hard times. Besides allowing for a legal detached rental unit the ordinance also allows for the construction of a two story structure – an arrangement that will work well for Kate’s needs and will help to preserve the spaciousness of her backyard.

Kate is planning to build with a mind toward sustainability and has a special interest in using recycled building materials whenever possible (she is, at this time, planning to write a parallel blog on the topic of recycled building materials). For us at CAST architecture Kate's project is an exciting chance to test out the new backyard cottage ordinance and work with a client who is committed to building green. We see her project as an excellent opportunity to provide the general public with information about the process of designing and building a backyard cottage in Seattle. Kate and her partner Ric Cochrane are always game for an adventure and have graciously agreed to allow us to share their experience with you. To that end, we are planning to blog about Kate's project as we travel through the design and construction process. Please subscribe to our feed if you would like to follow along in future posts…

We just heard that another one of our projects is going to be featured in Fine Homebuilding Magazine! The Artalejo-Lacas Residence is a 'zen craftsman'--traditional bungalow massing with some really wonderful spaces inside and details inspired by Japanese vernacular houses.

The project will be in the annual Houses issue--which is, well, especially cool because only a handful of houses nation wide make the cut.

CAST has been involved in a number of  pro bono projects over the years, such as parks, community gardens, community centers, art installations, and smart development, and one of those, the Interbay P-Patch, is being published in an upcoming book on pro bono design by Public Architecture. This project was originally headed up by Nathan Walker, and after he left town, we've continued our involvement, adding a kiosk, arbor and most recently cool signage at the street.

We're really excited about the P-Patch, one, because it is a project that is near and dear to our hearts, and two, it can inspire more firms to offer their expertise to help civic and community causes, and more citizen groups to see that if they can dream it, they can build it.

With the impending vote on the backyard cottage ordinance, everyone in the office has been doing a little daydreaming about the DADUs and what they would build.  I have been working on a idea that started with a little ink drawing. It's now developed into a preliminary model/floor plans.  I've flipped the shed roof to have more volume in the shop/studio and worked out the bathroom so that my shop could easily be converted into an open kitchen/living space.

I have also been working out a simple steel structure, clad with structural insulated panels for easy construction and minimization of waste.  The goal is prefabrication of the components offsite, then assemble.

I'd love to try out using a geothermal pre-heating loop, with a hydronic radiant system run of a domestic hot water heater and test the new PV shingles, but that might get a bit expensive.

We're almost there--the committee passed the measure to allow backyard cottages in Seattle.  Next stop will be City Council. There are some notable amendments to the ordinance--the 50 per year allowed cap has been eliminated.  The heights have changed somewhat.  A discussion to limit the cottage height to no more than 15' above the primary residence's roof (which would affect sloped lots primarily) was tabled without conclusion.

The discussion is a little strange, in that some of the requirements being tossed around are more stringent than for building a single family house.  Case in point--if this relative height limit section passes, you will need a topographic survey to prove that the cottage conforms (not required on a new house if well within setbacks and under height), thus added about $2000 to the pricetag for the drawings.  This doesn't make any sense if the city is serious about this as being an affortable option.

Another case in point--Councilmember Rasmussen was leaning toward a neighborhood notice, similar to a MUP, but the neighbor's recourse, provided the cottage design fits the requirements, is nil.  The cottage is a Level 1 decision (no notice necessary, just like a new single family house), but creating such a provision would form a special class of notice ("Here is what is happening next door, but there is nothing you can do about it.  Thanks for coming down.").

Unfortunately, I had to run out before the discussion on the privacy issue, another NIMBY favorite, but in the end the ordinance is one step closer to fruition.

You can see the entire meeting online at the Seattle Channel here.  Backyard Cottage discussion starts at 107.30.

Seattle's DPD just announced a program to accelerate permitting for sustainable projects, called Green Q, as in 'queue.' Applicants need to commit to construction waste recycling, dwelling units under 2400 sf, and meet LEED silver or better, or BuiltGreen 4 star or better.

The Planning, Land-Use and Neighborhood Committee is planning on voting on the Backyard Cottages on October 8th.  Last chance to make yourself heard on this issue! It will be a packed agenda, with discussions of the Multi-family code revision as well as the design review process (which will be mandatory in Multi-family).

The 10x10x10 is an event put on by the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild annually to highlight regional sustainably oriented projects each year.  The name derives from the fact that they showcase 10 projects, and give each presenter 10 minutes to talk about 10 slides.  This year CAST was selected to be one of the presenters for our work on in-fremont, a series of 5 town homes designed for 5 star BuiltGreen certification. The event was held at the Gates auditorium, at the Seattle Public Library last Friday. There were some great projects discussed - I especially enjoyed Christina Bollo's talk from SMR on Kenyon House a LEED platinum affordable housing project.  Since I have all the material handy I thought I would post the slides from my talk, as well as a quick transcript, which steps through some of the concepts, and techniques we were working on with the in-fremont project.

SLIDE 1 - Intro:

• In-fremont is a set of 5 town homes finished in the spring this year – which was not exactly great timing!
• But we had a client who was excited to explore what we could do in terms of a high quality sustainably minded project
• In 2007 we received a Built Green grant in their multifamily category, which was a great help in trying to push a project like this forward.

SLIDE 2 - Quick orientation:

• Location: just north of 36th in Fremont on phinney – extremely pedestrian oriented location.
• 5 units counterclockwise. Goal was to Break out of the typical 4 pack plan you see all over.
• This is a bit of an atypical site having a 10’ wide x 40’ deep slice of commercial zoned C1-40 in an otherwise typical L-2 lot.
• Since we could not span across the zoning line with this unit, it provided a unique constraint as well as a great tie in to the 10x10x10 …
• So in addition to the 10 presenters and 10 slides and 10 minutes, i‘m going to add 10 feet.  That is the outside to outside dimension of unit 5 and good segway for talking about sustainability and scale.

SLIDE 3 - unit 5:

• Unit 5 ended up being a 950 sqft 2br 2 bath
• Quantity is intrinsically linked to sustainability - you can do as much advanced framing, and responsible specifications as possible, in the end the way to leverage all that is to reduce size – that cuts across all the materials and finishes.
• Key to selling people on smaller is making sure they are extremely desirable, and functional spaces
• Staggered section helps break down the length of the building.
• Central light well 3’ setback brings natural light to the core of the building.
• This was envisioned as a live work scenario – having an office with sidewalk access for clients.

SLIDE 4 - unit 5 pictures:

• To put it into context this is 400 sqft lot – that is an order of magnitude smaller than the typical Seattle single family lot – this means fewer materials, higher density, smaller footprint & lower impact.
• Despite the size this is a very dynamic space - It wont be sustainable if no one wants to live in it.
• The stairs act as a transparent screen which reveal adjacent spaces and light, while breaking down the overall length and volume.
• Dramatic 12’ high living room and glass walls, gives the space sense of volume, variety  and levity which would have been lacking without the split level.

SLIDE 5 - power plant:

• We ended up settling on a gas boiler to drive the radiant floors and domestic hot water.
• This single piece of equipment runs both systems with instant on heat and no standby losses and a 93% efficiency rating.
• All the units are plumbed in for solar hot water, which would preheat the domestic hot water loop for the boiler.
• In terms of panel placement, we realized that we had two sites with better solar access, and so we created a solar easement as part of the unit lot subdivision to allow all the units to place and maintain the panels relative to solar access rather than property lines.
• According to the city this was the first time in Seattle this was done for solar access in a short plat.

SLIDE 6 – details:

• On the exterior we used a rain screen throughout - simply holding the siding off the building with a vented air space, allows for the walls to dry out, reducing the chances of rot and mold, and allows the finishes to last substantially longer.
• Bamboo & concrete radiant floors aid in air quality - no carpet or ducting for mold or dust to gather.
• Site built casework such as screen frames and treads made of bamboo plywood.
• Trim all finger joined poplar - no mdf.
• Low voc paint – waterborne clear coats – compact florescent energy star lights throughout.

SLIDE 7 – air sealing:

• Since most heat loss in a reasonably insulated home occurs thru infiltration rather than radiant loss, a composite system of spray foam & fiberglass batts was used to create the air seal.
• This creates an R-24 wall and allows the air barrier to be achieved more easily in a production environment – only one trade is then responsible for the bulk of the work.
• With the decreased infiltration, comes the need for increased ventilation.
• Heat recovery ventilators brings in fresh air while recovering aprox 80% of the embodied energy, which keeps a tight home healthy and energy efficient.
• Garage included an exhaust fan equipped with a motion sensor.
• Also tied into an ev charging station so the fan can be activated when charging to take care of any off gassing.

SLIDE 8 - garage as flex space:

• While parking is required by code, cars are basically what ruins the ground level of most town homes.
• Given the pedestrian oriented location of the site we wanted to plan for the possibility that they might be used as a studio, shop or bedroom
• Natural light / aluminum doors with sidelights, help make drive court a more human space, matching the detailing of the rest of the windows on site.
• The garage is fully insulated both from the outside and the rest of the house so they could be used as garage or habitable space.

SLIDE 9 – framing:

• Floor to ceiling glass - No headers or cripples - typical rim joist was adequate for all but a handful of openings.
• 24”oc studs on 75% of walls to reduce thermal bridging.
• Insulation heal on truss, allowed for r-50 in the roof all the way out to the edge of the building, and maintain clearance for eave vents.

SLIDE 10 – wrap-up:

• In some of these images you can really get a sense of the affect of the floor to ceiling glass on the quantity of natural light and the way it washes the ceiling & floor.
• This project was really rewarding working on compact plans and trying to wring the most out of the smallest amount.
• Quality over quantity ended up to be one of the main ways that we were able maximize the affect of specking responsible materials and systems.

In the last month, the City Council paid 3 groups to study the new MF code and flesh out some likely outcomes (good and bad) and propose revisions to the code.  It is a complex issue--the code revision itself is about 277 pages--and no doubt the Council were daunted by the prospect of interpreting the impact.  It took me two evenings just to get through the entire code and I am still not sure I've got a handle on all the ins and outs.

The three groups were the Masterbuilders Association, the Congress of Residential Architects, and Group Three (composed of unaffiliated concerned citizens).  Each group were paid 5k for their work (our fee went to CORA--not to the  8 individual participants).  Here are my impressions from the three groups:

MBA

The MBA group, lead by Arg Consulting and Pb Elemental focused on fee simple townhomes, 1200 sf-1600sf each, on both the L1 and L3 sites.  One gable style, one flat roof style option for each site given in the program.  The schemes prioritized surface parking (I think one scheme had garages).  The site designs either a central surface parking lot, accessed along a longitudinal drive or perpendicular parking off an alley.  The reduction in setbacks meant the building volumes were spread to the site edges.  These would be cheap to build--fee simple boxes, surface parking, no cantilevers--and  therefore probably the most likely to get built under the new code.  Which is depressing, when you extrapolate it to the scale of the city.

The other remarkable thing is that the MBA group left development capacity on the table in order to have straight forward rectangles.  The most dense scheme had 6 units (on 7200 sf= 1200 sf per unit) well below the 800 sf per unit allowable now.  It seems hard to believe that developers best use of the lot is solely dictated by construction simplicity.  My back of the envelop calculation would put the FAR between 1 and 1.34 (6 units X 1200 or 1600 sf per = between 7200 sf and 9600sf divided by 7200 sf lot), less than the 1.4 allowed.  The outcome of the MBA exploration is big units, minimal density, and pushed to the property lines so there is enough space to have cheap surface parking. That isn't to say that all the other groups' schemes made economic sense, but if this is their best option, the proposed mandatory design review has to have some more bite, because we'll definitely be seeing these bland site plans again all over town.

CORA:

The second presenter, the Congress of Residential Architects, had a lot of diversity in both type, density, good and bad.  CORA explored ground related townhouses, high density apartments, even row houses. We tried to find the limits, loopholes and boy did we create some code compliant cringe-worthy options, as well as some good options that would require departures.  David Neiman and Bradley Khouri deserve praise for herding the cats.   Here is a little conclusion that David Neiman wrote:

"There are certainly some problems with loopholes & some flawed gating mechanisms that we identified.  The bad news is that our bad schemes are even worse than what you can do today.  The good news, however, is that the culprits aren't very hard to find, and they aren't hard to fix.  Overall, we remain strong supporters of the Multi-Family Update.  It just needs some work under the hood.

Code changes recommended to make bad schemes better:

1.  Above 1.1 FAR, the wheels start to come off the cart for most ground based housing schemes.  At 1.4 FAR most ground based housing schemes are a disaster.  We need to revisit allowable FAR & use it as a tool to reward desirable features & outcomes.  For small-lot ground-based housing, FAR needs to be kept relatively low.  For structured parking solutions, large lots, and projects that undergo full design review, higher FAR is appropriate.  See executive summary.

2.   The residential amenities requirement is far too permissive – it reduces open space to an afterthought.  It's not hard to correct.  The requirements just need to be dialed up to be more significant.  See executive summary for proposal.

Code changes recommended to make good outcomes into better outcomes:

1.    Lift the density limits to allow diverse unit types, sizes, affordability levels.

2.    Return to a 30' base height limit for all L-zones w/ a 4' height bonus in L3 for structured parking.

3.    Encourage basements by exempting them from FAR – you get a privacy grade break & create opportunities for inexpensive rental flats.

4.   Green factor.  If it were working, it would incentivize open space, privacy screening, tree planting & permeability.  It does none of those things; it simply covers your land in shrubs & your walls in vines.

5.   See executive summary for more."

There will be more information and a pdf of our work forthcoming.

Group Three:

Because this post is getting long, I am going to rapidly summarize the Group 3:  Lots of double lot schemes, and generally trying to put a bad face on each.  I am not sure if anything they put up there would be something they'd like to see built.  There was a preposterous presentation of anecdotal evidence that when houses are closer than15' to the sidewalk that window blinds are always closed, and it emotes an unsafe neighborhood, therefore the front yard setbacks must be 15' feet.  One merely has to walk around any neighborhood to see front blinds drawn--it is not a function of distance to sidewalk.  There was a recurring complaint that street trees weren't provided or required and that more of the green factor elements would die or get removed (I envisioned a truck with mobile planters with trees being carted from one property to another to fulfill Green Factor, get the final inspection, then on to the next development).  I actually agree with this--by setting the level of Green Factor too high, they will be pushing unsustainable planting (one of their schemes had a vegetable garden at the bottom of a four story light well).   And they ground the axe of allowing developers to subdivide properties to take advantage of the rounding up allowed by unit density rules.  The presentation was a pretty cynical take on the new code.

If you have questions, or comments, I'd love to hear about them!

Cheers to Stefan for his excellent presentation at the NW Ecobuilding Guild's annual celebration of innovation in sustainability!