Table of contents for Sep-14 in Dwell

The key to small-space living is flexibility. At home, this can mean incorporating cleverly designed storage opportunities, finding furnishings that do double duty, or simply embracing an openness to owning less stuff. We love stories that include all of these strategies and more. Throughout this issue, we examine homes that support a variety of lifestyles: in Brooklyn, a young family with a toddler and another little one on the way gut-renovated a 675-square-foot apartment to maximize every inch (page 104); a couple on Vashon Island, Washington, transformed a onetime toolshed on their property into a glass-walled pavilion for entertaining and contemplation (page 96); a Los Angeles family with two sons reimagined their garage as a serene and comfortable hangout space (page 48). Another exciting project is a multiunit property in…

PROJECT Kiest Residence BUILDER Method Homes, methodhomes.net location Marrowstone Island, Washington Architect Chris Pardo designed the Element 1 model for prefab builder Method Homes, cladding it in Cor-Ten steel and cedar. Pardo’s design “is the definition of simple, elegant, straightforward building,” resident Karen Kiest says. Karen Kiest’s plot of land on Marrowstone Island, Washington, came with a surfeit of scenery—it overlooks Puget Sound—but suffered from a dearth of buildable space. The lot is near a bluff and a stream and has a wetland on and adjacent to it. “The [house’s] footprint became critical,” says Kiest, a landscape architect. She considered modular construction as a way to streamline the building and permitting process for her weekend retreat, and researched a slew of firms. The clincher was finding out that architect Chris…

When Australian architects Paul Owen, Stuart Vokes, and Aaron Peters were hired to update a timber mountain house on the Sunshine Coast, outside of Brisbane, they went small and modern—a complement to the region’s Queensland vernacular style. They installed a new triangular kitchen extension, measuring only 376 square feet, to clarify the entry to the house and create space for informal gatherings. Historically, Australians often built their kitchens away from the main house, mostly as a way to minimize fire damage, a common hazard for wood-framed structures in this hot, dry climate. The separate kitchen was outdated by the 1940s, but Owen and Vokes and Peters saw a certain elegance in such an arrangement, since it allowed for a veranda between the main house and the kitchen. “Neither inside nor…

A 196-square-foot house born of architectural know-how, an enterprising spirit, and just over $11,000 has become an inspiration to a growing community of tiny-house enthusiasts. Boise, Idaho–based architectural designer Macy Miller built her own 196-square-foot home, which she shares with her partner, James Herndon, their newborn, Hazel, and the family’s Great Dane, Denver. The exterior cladding, which Miller stained for a uniform effect, is a mix of nearly a dozen types of wood plank, including poplar, oak, and fir. Six years ago, designer Macy Miller was in the middle of a divorce and facing foreclosure on her 2,500-square-foot home—an experience that was emblematic of the economic downturn. Since then, however, she has become a poster child for a different cultural phenomenon, one that has gained momentum with the belt-tightening ushered…

PHOTOS BY Grant Harder On Vashon Island, about 20 miles southwest of Seattle, architect Seth Grizzle designed a 440-square-foot multiuse structure for his clients Bill and Ruth True. PROJECT Garage architect Graypants location Vashon Island, Washington When Bill and Ruth True bought a second home, overlooking the shores of Puget Sound on picturesque Vashon Island, it came with a compact, detached wood garage-cum-toolshed. The couple, art collectors who formerly operated a nonprofit Seattle art gallery, played the occasional game of ping-pong inside the structure, but otherwise didn’t know what to do with the space. After hosting a memorable candlelit Thanksgiving dinner there, the Trues began to imagine it as something more than a garage: a multiuse space for dinner parties, meditation, yoga, even art lectures—anything other than a place to…

The Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie was a strategic defense area from the 1800s to the 1960s. Located in the Netherlands’ west, the low-lying land was engineered with canals and sluices that could flood the area with a layer of water deep enough to make travel by foot dangerous yet shallow enough to prevent boat access. In 2004, the country enacted a plan to recast the zone for contemporary use while also nodding to its historic significance. Enter architect Bruno Despierre of Brusselsbased firm B-ILD. He won a commission from Famous, an advertising agency, to morph a 140-square-foot underground bunker built by the Dutch government in the first half of the 20th century into a holiday home. To accommodate four people in the compact space, Despierre deftly devised a fleet of built-in…

Love the simplicity of the materials and the white walls and floors of Casa Azul (Focus, May 2014, above). They make every other element and the furniture stand out. Congratulations to Cincopatasalgato and José Roberto Paredes. I look forward to seeing their next project! Roberto Newbill Posted to dwell.com In 1980, I built a passive solar house with lots of glass expanses. As I looked through your beautiful May issue, I wondered if there had been advances in protecting birds from flying into glass that reflects the sky. I applaud the reflective beauty of Grimshaw Architects’ waste-to-energy exterior (Concepts, May 2014), but I am concerned about birds crashing into it. As I prepare to build my retirement home, I want to address this issue in the best way possible. Dee…

PROJECT May/Mahony Studio architect Jagoda Architecture, jagodaarchitecture.com location Santa Monica, California When Libby May and Eoghan Mahony purchased a 1950s post-and-beam house in Los Angeles’ Santa Monica Canyon, they envisioned someday transforming the garage and adjoining workshop into livable space, with an office for each of them and a family room they could share with their sons, Wes, 14, and Duncan, ten. But then an enormous stone pine crashed unceremoniously into the garage, and suddenly the plan was no longer on the back burner. “Our ‘someday’ could have been years,” May acknowledges. “In the end, it was great that we were forced to do the project.” May, a freelance book editor, and Mahony, a television writer, called on architect Emily Jagoda, who had designed an addition to their previous home.…

PROJECT Kicking Horse Residence architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and Bohlin Grauman Miller Architects, bcj.com bohlingraumanmiller.com location Golden, British Columbia Douglas fir walls and beams extend to the exterior of a weekend house near Golden, British Columbia, by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and Bohlin Grauman Miller Architects. Black-stained and clear cedar siding offset the pitched roof, which alludes to the shape of evergreens. After years of frequenting winter sports hot spots, such as Lake Louise in Alberta, an active young Canadian family sought a retreat from the revelers and planned a weekend house with access to world-class skiing. A plot at the base of a mountain outside Golden, British Columbia—home to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort—and architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson both fit the bill, and now the family skis in and skis out…

PROJECT Drew/McManus Residence architect GRO Architects location New York, New York Graphic designers Ned Drew and Brenda McManus have made their renovated Manhattan apartment a showcase for their collectibles, including a vintage Eames leg splint and a “Wilhelm Tell” poster by Armin Hofmann. Brenda McManus and Ned Drew still vividly recall the revulsion that washed over them when they first saw their tiny apartment in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan. Navigating a dark, sloping hallway carpeted with artificial turf, they peered into a pair of small rooms whose walls—painted in gradations of garish blue and orange—resembled pages from an old Benjamin Moore catalog. The kitchen was in an equally sorry state, and the bathroom—outfitted with dingy pink tiles and a moldy shower curtain—arguably was in even worse shape.…

“It really has made us scrutinize what’s important and what we can do without. Rather than being a burden, that has been liberating. We don’t feel weighed down by stuff we don’t need or use.” Finding an almost aff ordable apartment in New York can be harder than uncovering the proverbial needle in a haystack. While the hunt has never been easy, the past few years have been almost impossible, with sky-high prices, pent-up demand, and a scarcity of available inventory. That was the market that David Friedlander and Jacqueline Schmidt faced when they found they were soon to be parents. Their 500-squarefoot rental in Brooklyn’s Park Slope just wasn’t big enough for three. After a frustrating, unrewarding search, they decided to move upstate to Beacon, where they envisioned a…

September 2014 Joakim Blockstrom An interiors, food, and still-life photographer, Sweden’s Joakim Blockstrom shot Simone ten Hompel’s 576-square-foot London residence (“Stairway to Heavens,” p. 88). “Arriving at Simone’s apartment, I instantly fell in love with the place,” Blockstrom says. “The light was beautiful and the design superb.” Brian Libby Writing about two tiny works of Pacific Northwest architecture (My House, p. 68, and “Vashon Show,” p. 96) was a treat for Portland-based journalist Brian Libby, who enjoys seeing modern design applied to modest budgets and scale. “They’re both these little jewels, and their owners have so much passion,” says Libby, who also contributes to The New York Times, Architect, and The Atlantic Cities. Grant Harder For “Vashon Show” (p. 96), Vancouver photographer Grant Harder spent the night in Bill and…

Born-and-bred New Yorkers Amanda Schachter and Alexander Levi of SLO Architecture moved to Spain after getting their master’s degrees in the late 1990s, and they had no intention of returning. While abroad, the married couple taught at Barcelona’s ESARQ-UIC and started their own architecture practice in Madrid in 2005. When their home city eventually beckoned in 2007, they found themselves strangers in their own land. “It was very exotic coming back,” Levi says. “We felt like we were seeing everything anew.” The couple embraced their new outsider status by taking long walks and bike rides around the five boroughs. On these explorations, a flurry of activity on and along the Bronx River caught their attention. “When we were growing up, you couldn’t even get near the water,” Schachter says. “There…

It was the middle of the aughts when Woodbury University professor Hector Perez rallied a group of architects to pool their resources and buy nine lots in the historic Barrio Logan neighborhood of San Diego, near the Mexican border, to develop as campus space for the school. Then the economy stalled, and the plans for the university shifted to another area nearby. But the architects kept the parcels with the intention of developing them in a way that would best serve the community. The first lot to be developed now holds a double-height, mixed-use building of Perez’s design, where, in less than 4,000 square feet, he has created eight live-work units, each with a dedicated outdoor space. “I’m sort of the canary in the coal mine, being the first to…

PROJECT Living Workshop architect Ullmayer Sylvester Architects location London, England Architects Silvia Ullmayer and Allan Sylvester worked with joiner Roger Hynam to reinvent an apartment for metalworker Simone ten Hompel (above). The stairs lead to a sleeping loft outftted with a mechanical skylight. For 15 years, metalworker Simone ten Hompel lived uncomfortably with the shortcomings of her London flat—four poorly insulated rooms squeezed into 398 square feet. She used the cold bedroom at the back for storage and the small living room at the front for virtually everything else; a futon mattress on the ground served as her bed and sofa, and a tray doubled as a dining table. “I spent all my time on the floor,” she recalls. “But I promised myself I wouldn’t do anything apart from new…

29 Modern World Jagoda Architecture http://jagodaarchitecture.com/Above Board Constructionhttp://aboveboardconstruction.net/Jay Griffithhttp://jaygriffith.com/Victor Cejeda 626-488-1638Tufty-Time sofa by Patricia Urquiola for B&B Italiahttp://bebitalia.com/Flokati rughttp://flokatirug.net/Artwork by Steve Keene http://stevekeene.com/Cooroy Joinery and Woodworks 61-7-5442-6142 Fiber cement cladding by James Hardiehttp://jameshardie.com.au/Altair window louvers by Breezwayhttp://breezway.com/Whisper White paint by Duluxhttp://dulux.com.au/CoolColour paint in Blackjack by Resene Australiahttp://resene.com.au/Vogue Ghiaccio tiles in Glosshttp://classicceramics.com.au/Kitchen cabinet doors by Centorhttp://centor.com.au/Double sink in white porcelain by Villeroy & Bochhttp://villeroy-boch.com/Leva polished chrome faucet by Enwarehttp://enware.com.au/Dishwasher by AEGhttp://aegaustralia.com.au/A110 pendant lamp by Alvar Aalto for Artekhttp://artek.fi/Propeller Bubble lamp by George Nelson for Modernicahttp://www.modernica.net/Ethanol-fueled fireplace by Ecosmarthttp://ecosmartfire.com/Metro tiles in Charcoal by Winckelmanshttp://www.metrotiles.com.au/Gillespie Onyx fabric from Warwick Fabricshttp://warwick.com.au/Wooden hall table fabricated by Adam Meisenhelterhttp://doppelfactory.com.au/ 60 Nice Modernist Hector Perezhttp://hectormperez.com/Windows and doors from PRL Glass Systemshttp://prlglass.com/Kitchen appliances from Aztec Appliancehttp://aztecappliance.com/Laminated flooring, pendant lamps in Chris Puzio’s unit, and patio chairs from Ikeahttp://ikea.com/Pendant…