![]() In addition to saving money in phase one, when we complete things in phase two, the entire inside finish of the house will be new and things will be tied together. In order to save money, we left all the interior finish off in phase one. In phase two this large space will be a living room, but in the first phase, a small galley kitchen is where the fireplace will be in the phase two, and an eating area is tucked in next to it looking out the windows to the east. In phase one, the very small front porch of the dependency leads into a high-ceilinged space with a loft at the end. When we build phase two, the dependency is moved to the east and forms a downstairs bed/work room, and the living room module gets extended into a Greek revival farmhouse. In the case of this house, we first built what would end up as the living room and screened porch, and then added a 10′x18′ “dependency” to the end that contained a tiny bedroom, small bathroom, and front porch. In doing phased houses, the critical thing to remember is to keep the transaction cost low by that I mean the additional cost of doing it in two phases instead of all at once. This is a two-phase house that we developed for a couple who wanted to take advantage of their land but were not ready to commit the funds necessary to build the final house. ![]() This house will do well on many sites and will fit in nicely among other houses in suburban locations, but it will make your neighbors envious. Working drawing sets vary for each of the houses.Ī two-phase design that gets you living on the land in the short run, and leaves you with an elegant Greek revival cape and guesthouse in the long run. Working drawings provide you with the architectural documentation you (or your builder) need to build this house. It’s a wonderful place to hunker down near the woodstove (which could become a fireplace) and wait out the winter, and in the summer all the glass makes it like living outside. Once inside the bedroom, the bay window lets all the space fly out into the view so that you can almost forget that the house is behind you. This destination effect makes the bedroom feel like a very separate and private place because of the spatial transition to get to it. Walk from there along the balcony that goes past the bathroom (or the closet space) and you end up at the bedroom. Once inside the building, all of the rooms radiate off the central space, which is open to the roof ridge so that you can always get a sense of the entire space, even as you are sheltered in the cozier side spaces.Ĭlimb up the compact corner stair and the space at the top of the stairs is like a wide hallway that we developed into an office/study. In the dead of winter, the same front porch and the same entry hall inside will serve both entrances-no hallways! This mudroom holds a freezer and washer and dryer tucked under the stairs. It is desirable in a small house that circulation space has multiple uses, so we have both a front door and an airlock mudroom entry off the front porch. The house can easily be mirrored to deal with a westerly as opposed to an easterly view orientation. On this site the house looks out to a quiet cove to the southeast, but this house would do well with any site where the approach is from a different direction than the primary view. ![]() This assured that what sunlight fell down into this “hole in the forest” would get into the house. Since we were only cutting a small hole in the forest canopy, I took this compact footprint, and gave it a strong vertical component and a lot of roof glazing so the house could reach up toward the light, like the spruce trees around it. ![]() Emphasizing the diagonal in the plan tends to minimize the sense of confinement that small houses must avoid. You enter this house on a corner porch and immediately see across the diagonal of the house to another porch. It was a vacation home for their family of four, and was designed with the idea of enlarging it (which we later did) if they moved there year round. Our clients wanted the smallest footprint possible to minimize the impact on their beautiful land. When I designed this house it was foremost in my mind to create a place that was wonderful to be in because it was small. This house was featured in Sarah Susanka’s book, Creating the Not So Big House (2000), in the Spring 1988 issue of House Beautiful, and the February 1986 issue of Down East magazine. ![]() Views are oriented to the south and west, but you could mirror it for south and east. A very compact footprint, and a strong sense of geometry make this house a good candidate for tight sites. ![]()
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