The stunning views of the lake, city, and Puget Sound below, set the stage for a spectacular home that really blurs the line between indoors and outdoors.  Our clients came to us with three overarching goals for their home:  execute beautifully on the clean, modern aesthetic they love; use our experience to optimize its high-performance chops; and maintain discipline for the overall construction budget.  In our humble opinion, three goals that could be good for most projects; beauty, high-performance, and budget discipline.

The architecture team at Haven Design Workshop worked closely with the clients and ourselves to get the design just right from the window orientation and sizings, to the incredible covered deck.  As senior staff in a softwoods product company the clients had a desire to use clear cedar accents on the exterior that really warmed up the covered deck and the front entry.  The Integrated Design strategy of bringing the architect, owner, and contractor together during the design process allowed for a well-planned and thoughtful construction budget.

What you may not notice while contemplating the view over a steamy cup of morning coffee or sharing a beer and a conversation leaning up against the deck railing in the afternoon sun, is just how the high-performance detailing of the house is lending itself to your sweet moment.  Spending the time to detail and build high-performance homes that are low maintenance, thermally comfortable, with healthy indoor air, and great energy efficiency provide great benefits for the owner’s for years to come.  This is mostly achieved with careful attention to constructing a building envelope that is optimized for solar orientation, well air-sealed, well insulated, and thermally broken.  While also using great HVAC equipment such as heat recovery ventilators and ductless mini-split heat pumps.

In the cold, wet winter months of the PNW when we spend many hours indoors we all appreciate a home that has great air quality; consistent, comfortable temperatures; and does it without high utility bills or big carbon footprints.  In the summer months when we are all manically recreating we appreciate the absence of home maintenance and cool, airy indoor spaces.  Through good communication starting during design and carrying through the project this home delivered on all fronts.