Over the past few years I've made a series of attempts to get a new townhouse archetype built in Seattle, a scheme I call the Central Court. My first attempt began in 2006 with the Clawson-Allan Residence, a 3-unit project designed for a custom home client. They approached me with the idea of building a townhouse project where they would live in one of the units & keep the other two for rental properties. At our first meeting, I floated a scheme that was not unlike a typical Seattle 4-pack townhouse, with units in the front, units in the back, and a drive court in-between. My innovation was to lid over the driveway with a deck that would turn the center of the site into a courtyard that would provide a community open space for all of the units.
It was a simple idea, but it violated at least a half dozen key development standards in the land use code. In order to get the project permitted, we had to volunteer for design review, a lengthy and costly process that added a solid year to the project timeline. The novelty of the project configuration also triggered a series of objections from the building code enforcement team, which derailed the project further still. By the time the building permits were ready, it was mid-2008, the economy was in free fall, and construction financing was nowhere to be found. The project was mothballed, never to return.
Central Court #1 - Clawson Allan Residence - 2006 to 2008. Unbuilt
The next three years I spent doing public advocacy for an update of the multifamily code, working with DPD and the city council to develop a more flexible, open land use code that could open the way for a number of new housing types. As drafts of the new code were sent around for comment, I kept the Central Court scheme in the back of my mind, checking the specific language to see if there was enough wiggle room inside of the code to let something like this happen.
It was difficult to get much traction with the city planners and code authors. After all, no project of this type had ever gotten built. How do you get someone to prioritize enabling a housing type that exists only on my hard drive? One event that helped a little was the presentation of White Hat Black Hat to the city council. The Central Court was one of the featured schemes in my presentation. It got a little bit of press on local blogs, the Daily Journal of Commerce, and ended up on the Sally Clark's website (Sally was the chair of the land use committee at the time). It helped to drive home that I wasn't the only person that found this to be an appealing idea.
Central Court rendering from Black Hat White Hat - presentation to Seattle City Council
I eventually managed to get some language worked into a draft of the code that created some allowance for garages with open space on top, but the enabling language was always written very narrowly. I wanted the door thrown wide open, the code authors intended to crack it open just a hair. When the final code was published in early 2011, it appeared to me that some flaws in the code language left the door shut tight.
In Spring 2011, I brought my first new townhouse project designed under the new land use code in for a preliminary review. The new code would not permit Central Court scheme outright, but I assumed that I would be able to reprise (and learn from) the Clawson Allan Residence, using design review to skirt around the inflexible portions of the code. To my chagrin, I discovered that the unworkable code language was in a chapter that is not eligible for departures through design review. So, for the purpose of the Central Court at least, the new code had taken me backwards a step.
Central Court #2 - 110 N 39th Street - 2011. New code would not allow. Scheme abandoned.
The silver lining was that having a concrete
example of a real-world project getting stymied by a flaw in the code
gave me a platform to re-lobby the DPD planners to tweak the language
one more time. They have agreed to include a re-write of this code
section in their next clean-up legislation (probably later this
year).
So, what to do in the meantime? Early in 2012, a developer approached me with a plot of land that had some unusual site dimensions. Having beaten my head against the same wall enough times, I recognized that the proportion of this site might afford me an opportunity to do a variation of the Central Court that would skirt the code provisions that had flummoxed me in my previous attempt. A couple days of careful planning confirmed that, while it would require a slightly odd massing (purely to game the land use standards), it was possible to pull it off. Fireworks. Victory Dance. Client was thrilled. End of story? Almost, not quite.
Central Court #3 - Beacon Townhomes - Currently on the boards
Turns out that, while the land use planners at DPD are on board with the idea of trying out some new housing types, nobody really sent that memo to the fire department or the building code reviewers. For reasons that make perfect sense from a code enforcement perspective and almost none from a common sense point-of-view, they were less than thrilled with my proposal. For a while it appeared that the project would get crushed under the cumulative weight of all of the special construction and sprinkler/alarm/monitoring features required to get the project through the life-safety review.
Thankfully, a helpful supervisor at DPD was willing to put in some time to help me negotiate a compromise that appears workable. The project will get hit with some significant extra costs - enough to bruise the bottom line, but not enough to make it bleed out. It's enough of a problem that I'll need to continue to lobby DPD to find a way to get this project type done within a reliable, low-friction process.
But that is a fight for another day. For now, I'm just thrilled to be able to say that I'm green-lighted on my first Center Court project. Keep an eye on this one. It could be great.
We do all of our design work using Revit, a program that models the project in 3d & extracts views of the model to make the drawings. It's a difficult program to learn, but it pays off huge dividends when it come to helping clients to visualize the project.
We just completed a design development package for this house, which is the stage in which we start to get more detailed about designing the interior finishes, cabinetry, fixtures, & the like. Up to this point we've mostly been looking at floor plans & exterior views of the project. Suddenly, the amount of information that the client needs to take in increases exponentially - the drawing set is now filled with schedules, lighting diagrams, interior elevations & the like.
For many clients it is difficult to assimilate all of the information in these drawings, and more challenging still to visualize the implications of what we are proposing. So, in addition to providing the usual drawings, we use our 3d models to supplement the drawings with walk-through videos & perspective views. See below for a new video of a house on the boards on the West Seattle Waterfront.
A little brag video from Seattle Land Broker, the sales agent for Howell Lofts. The project set a record for highest sales per/sf for Seattle. So its my brag too now.
Howell Lofts
goes to market this week. The first
public open house will be Sunday, January 29th from 1- 4pm. Howell Lofts looms large for us for a number of
reasons. Notably, it is the first new housing project that we’ve completed since the bottom fell out of the market three years ago. It is our first project to use
some of the new parking flexibility of the new multi-family codes, which helped provide
a more pedestrian friendly street presence for the project. It is also our first project designed for Built Green
5-star, the highest level of certification available through that program, and one of only ten homes
in King County built to this level of performance in 2011. Howell Lofts will be a significant test for how well the current home sales market will reward an ambitious green project and how it will respond to our unconventional parking solution.
Howell Lofts
is built on a little sliver of land, 23’ wide by 138’ long. A 100 year old house sits on the corner with a
long strip of backyard that faced Howell street. We short platted the land into 4 small lots,
remodeled the old house and then developed the three remaining lots into townhomes. Parking, as
always, is a significant issue with small infill development. In our case, our goal was to create buildings
that were welcoming and that contributed to the pedestrian environment. Given the site configuration, we were forced to choose between a streetscape dominated by garage doors, or less parking than is typical for new housing. Reducing our parking count allowed us to create small courtyard
entries for the units that would otherwise be filled with parking. Avoiding curb cuts also allowed us to
preserve two large specimen trees in the right of way.
The neighbors, however, were not thrilled to
hear of our plans for providing less than 1 parking stall for each unit, as
this would put pressure on the already over-subscribed street parking in the
area. To resolve the issue, we approached
the Union Gospel Mission next door and made a deal to lease some surplus spaces in their parking lot. In the
end, we got the building design that we wanted, the neighbors got our cars off
the street, and UGM gets income to help with their mission.
The project
is laid out with the units facing south onto Howell street. Large windows are grouped along this south
façade to capture natural light and passive solar gains in the winter. The large trees we preserved provide shading
in the summer. The homes have about
twice the amount of glazing as a typical home, and most of the windows are
operable in order to provide good ventilation in the summer. In addition, the stairways are designed with
open risers to facilitate vertical airflow & allow for convection currents
to pull out hot air in the daytime & push down cool air for nighttime
flushing.
The limited
space on the site required layouts with a very compact (20’x20’) footprint. We designed the units with a split level
entry and a switchback stair so that minimal space was given over to hallways
and entry circulation. While the
footprints are relatively small, the zoning allowed us one more story than a
typical townhouse project, so in the end we got units that are quite
generous. Each unit has 3br/2.5ba and a rooftop deck.
The
developer, Jonathan Mckee, sensed that the lull in the construction market was
a great opportunity to try something ambitious, and he set us a goal to
certify the building to the highest green standard. The project team had regular weekly meetings
throughout the design process to continually optimize the building and to
grapple with the simultaneous challenges of digesting the Built-Green
requirements as well as those of a brand new energy, stormwater, and land use
codes.
One of the
biggest challenges that we faced is that 5 star projects have to meet an energy
performance 30% better than what is required by code. Moreover, since the energy code baseline is based
on an assumption that the project has significantly less glazing than we were
using, we had a lot catching up to do. We used very high performance windows and a premium insulation package,
which got us part of the way there. Air leakage,
it turns out, is actually the biggest source of energy loss, and it can be hard
to eliminate because the sources of leakage are so manifold and dispersed. To help tighten up the envelope we used Knauf
Ecoseal, a form of sprayed caulking that gets applied to every joint in the
framing and seam of the plywood. A
blower door test at the end of framing helped us find little cracks before the
building cavities got closed up.
Window U Value = 0.18. The blue color is the Knauf Ecoseal
Tight building envelopes make for great energy performance but also create a couple
new challenges. Leakage is bad from an energy standpoint, but air
exchange is necessary for healthy interior environments, so we needed to provide a supplemental mechanical ventilation system. Each unit
is outfitted with a heat recovery unit that brings in a constant supply of fresh air. Exhaust air is run through a heat exchanger
that transfers the outgoing heat to the incoming air, retaining about 80% of
the heat energy.
Rainscreen battens ventilate behind the siding
Another
challenge is that conventional residential siding systems aren’t particularly
watertight. Over time a fair amount of water gets behind the siding. In a conventional building that
moisture often gets dried out by all of the heat leaking out of the building. Energy efficient buildings don’t lose as much
heat, so they can’t depend on interior heat loss to make up for deficiencies in
the building envelope. With this issue in mind, we
design all of our new projects with a rainscreen siding system. Rainscreens create a cavity between the
siding and the building paper. Openings are
provided at the top & bottom of the wall to ventilate the cavity and dry out
any moisture that gets behind the siding.
Tadashi
Shiga, our energy consultant, had organized an informal co-op to
connect builders with suppliers of the products needed for efficient green buildings. Through this network we were able to source
high performance window, mechanical, and insulation packages at significant
discounts.
Project
Team:
Developer: Jonathan Mckee
General
Contractor: Roger Penner, Pluma Homes LLC
Project
Superintendent: Lorne Gunther
Architect: David Neiman Architects in collaboration with
Thomas Isarankura of Baan Design
Structural
Engineer: Todd Valentine, HSV Engineers
Civil Engineer: Brian Darrow, Blueline Group
Built Green
/ Energy Consultant: Tadashi Shiga,
Evergreen Certified
Real Estate
& Marketing: Ron Rubin, Seattle Land
Broker
Five Star Built Green Features
Energy savers:
Triple Glazed Windows, oriented
for passive solar gain in the winter, shaded by trees in the summer, have a
U-Value of 0.2, about twice as efficient as a typical window.
BIB insulation package provides
complete fill of cavities providing much higher performance than conventional
batt insulation.
Airtight construction methods
including sprayed sealants at the framing level and airtight drywall reduce air
infiltration to about 20% of what is seen in a typical project. Project has been blower door tested to
confirm energy performance.
Fresh air intake and exhaust
provided by a Heat Recovery Ventilator, which strips the exhaust air of its
heat and transfers energy to the incoming fresh air. The HRV system retains about 80% of the heat that
would otherwise be exhausted to the outdoors.
Super-high efficiency on-demand
boiler and domestic hot water supply heat on an as-needed basis, preventing
energy losses from storage tanks.
TED 5000C Energy monitor allows
real time monitoring of energy use and tracks use over time.
Overall energy performance is
modeled at 30% better than energy code (rated HERS 70).
No formaldehyde in interior
millwork including cabinets, trim, plywood.
Heat recovery ventilator
provides a constant supply of fresh air.
No carpet. Flooring is entirely tile and concrete.
Radiant floor hydronic heating
system. Ahh.
Stairwells with open risers and operable windows create a stack effect to increase natural ventilation in warm
weather.
Durable exterior:
A rainscreen cladding system
provides a ventilated cavity between the siding and the building paper to
increase the longevity of the exterior finishes and protect the structural
framing against long term moisture intrusion.
Commercial grade TPO membrane
roof with standing seam sheet metal parapet caps.
Exterior fiberglass entry doors
with integral sill pans.
Open space is entirely pervious
pavers and drought tolerant landscaping.
Rain barrels provide for
rainwater capture.
Low flow faucets and showers
reduce consumption by 30%.
Urban design solutions:
The existing house on the site
was saved and remodeled.
An existing garage on the site
was deconstructed & substantially recycled.
Two large specimen trees were preserved
and made into project features. The tree
canopies provide summer shading for the south facing windows and the rooftop
decks.
Parking for the project was
provided partly by leasing spaces from the Union Gospel Mission next door,
freeing up the open land for pedestrian courtyards instead of parking stalls.
All units feature rooftops
decks, providing much needed private open space with expansive views of Lake Washington.
Howell Lofts (19th & Howell) goes to market today. Word just came in that one of the units already has a full price offer. First Public Open house is scheduled for this Sunday. Howell Lofts is a bit of a test case for what kind of premium people will pay for a 5 Star Built-Green project, and how buyers will respond to purchasing units without dedicated parking (two of the units have parking spaces that are leased from the church next door).
See video of the project below from Seattle Land Broker
A couple months ago a colleague asked me to contribute a 60 word essay on the state of architecture today for a project called "60 Words". I dashed off a few thought & promptly forgot about it. Turns out, it was for a book. A copy arrived in the mail today. Not a very good book mind you, but hey...I'm a published author now.
Designing houses to work with the technology of the day has always been a challenge. Its hard to stay current on what's available and difficult to sort out the viable technologies from the flavor-of-the-week. About three years ago I had the experience of showing a (younger) couple a new house design that included some cabinets that I had designated for holding their CD/DVD collection. They looked me over with a mixture of curiosity and pity, as though I had shown them a kitchen design that included a coal chute and a delivery box for the milkman. Then they plucked their iPhones out of their pockets and waived them at me to let me know what century they were living in.
Since then, I've been paying a little more attention to the smartphone and how best to integrate that technology into our designs. When Howell Lofts hit the drawing board, one of my goals was to be able to market the homes as "iPhone ready". I focused on three kinds of technologies I wanted to try out. 1) Digital music; 2) Remote control of the house systems, and; 3) Real-time energy monitoring. For each of these, I installed a test system in my own home to try them out first. I
Digital Music: Sonos.
I thought this would be the biggest challenge of the three. Setting up a house for the playback of a digital music collection turns out to be the easiest, probably because there's a large marketplace of consumers that wants this feature in their home. There are many ways of getting this done, but I settled on a system made by Sonos. Sonos makes a line of products that can plug into an ethernet jack in your wall & talk directly to your computer network. The Sonos client software installs on your computer, catalogs and sorts your music collection, and can be controlled either by a PC or by an app on your smartphone or tablet. It was incredibly simple to set up & very easy to use. The best part about it, from an architects perspective, is that it doesn't require much in the way of wiring inside the wall. The only thing you need to provide is an ethernet connection. A+
Remote Controls: Insteon
Low voltage control systems have been available for decades, but up until recently, providing a house with a remote control that could dim the lights, adjust the thermostat, or unlock the door has required a six figure price tag and a team of technicians to pull it off. Recently, this technology has made it down to the level of consumer electronics. Now, for about $50 per switch, you can use a system called Insteon to create circuits in your house that can be controlled using your smartphone for the remote control.
For my house (and Howell Lofts) I installed a skeleton system that could be expanded in the future. I installed a few switched outlets in key locations where we plug in our computer monitors, printers, A/V components, and other electronics that have parasitic power loads. This allows us to shut down the house for the night at the click of a button. I also put the entry lights onto a remote control switch that would allow me to switch the lights on as I approached the house or shut the porch lights off at bedtime without going back downstairs.
Mixed reviews on the Insteon so far. It requires a little perseverance to set up, is a little more complicated to operate than is comfortable for the average user. One drawback seems to be that the controls on the PC work better than the controls on the smartphone app. Might need one more generation on the software side to get things working just right. B-
Energy Monitor: TED 5000 (The Energy Detective)
TED is an energy monitor that wires directly into your main electrical panel. It give you real-time data on your energy usage & stores the information for those, like myself, that enjoy a little recreational charting and graphing. Having an energy monitor has been a real eye opener for us, as I suspect it would be for most homeowners.
Once we got the system up and running, we spent a couple hours watching the monitor & wandering around the house trying to figure out what was using all of the energy & how we could turn things off to lower our usage. Very quickly we got a sense for what our baseline energy usage is. Now, when we walk by the monitor and see numbers that are higher than the baseline, we know that we've left something on. So, it's giving us really valuable feedback that you can't really get any other way. Also, if you're crafty like us, you can make the whole thing into a game & trick your kids into monitoring it for you.
Another valuable thing that the monitor shows you is the amount of energy that certain activities use. We have an electric hot water heater. While I could have told you that hot water uses up a lot of energy, there's nothing like a graph like this to illustrate the point. The spikes in this graph are caused by the hot water tank kicking on for showers and running the dishwasher. The smaller spikes throughout the days are from the heater kicking on periodically to maintain the temperature in the tank. Its one thing to be told that taking a short shower saves energy. But seeing the sheer magnitude is another thing altogether. Having this kind of information modifies your behavior.
We started out using a cell-phone app for the display, but we quickly found that this is the kind of tool that works best when the display is always on and always available. So we paid an extra $50 for a wireless display that sits on the countertop & passes judgement on us 24/7. A+
As I've mentioned before, one of the most important elements of Seattle's new multi-family zoning code is that it removes mandatory requirements for parking within Urban Villages. One project type that we're starting to see as a result is that apartment buildings owners (and buyers) are asking us to analyze properties looking for opportunities to fit more units on the site. Under previous codes this would have been impossible, since every extra unit would have required the conjuring of an additional parking space.
This in-place densification creates incentives to preserve existing buildings in lieu of redeveloping the site and produces some extra income for the building owner. Coincidentally, when you analyze a site looking for the bits of leftover development potential, you rarely discover opportunities to add units in prime locations. More often, these projects tend to generate units in basements and other secondary locations. The upside? The new apartments are generally more affordable compared with other units in the building.
Howell Lofts is our first new townhouse designed using the new multi-family code. It's a quirky little infill project that packs a lot of ambition onto a very small site. As such its been a great opportunity to prototype some new ideas that I'd been working on during the great recession, waiting for an opportunity to try them out.
Big idea #1 - Alternative Parking:
The new multi-family code removes mandatory parking requirements in Urban Villages and allows developers to provide whatever amount they deem appropriate. In our case, this flexibility allowed us to do some really great things with our planning that improved the project immensely.
First things first - we decided to design the project around a pedestrian oriented facade & provide only as many parking spaces as we could without massing up the streetscape of the project. The result is a project with generous entry courtyards where parking stalls would have been if 1:1 parking was provided.
The project provides two parking spaces for four units. While this makes for a great streetscape, the neighbors weren't exactly delighted to hear that we were under-parking the project, and frankly, the sales team wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of going to market with units that didn't have dedicated parking. So, we started asking around and discovered that the Union Gospel Mission next door had a parking lot that was under-utilized. So we negotiated a lease with UGM to rent a couple of parking spaces in their lot.
Its a win-win-win scenario where UGM gets income to help with their programs, we get dedicated parking that helps to sell the units and the neighbors get our cars off the street, where parking is already scarce.
We have another townhouse project in the works that provides three parking spaces for five units. While we expect that buyers will pay a bit less for units without parking, they are also cheaper to build and have more usable space. We're also discovering that projects that are willing to park at a lower ratio than 1:1 are often able to fit in an extra unit or two. On a small infill project this can make huge difference to the bottom line.
Over the next year, were going to see several "no parking" townhouses come to market & we'll be watching carefully to see how these projects sell in comparison to traditional townhouses with 1:1 parking.
