Breaking Rules: Openness was the key to a fresh design and an airy feel

About the contest

The annual Seattle Times/AIA Home of the Year contest was judged by AIA member architects Sian Roberts of Miller/Hull and Lane Williams of Lane Williams Architects, as well as interior designer Nancy Satterberg of Satterberg Desonier Dumo Interior Design.

West Seattle

Architect: David Coleman of David Coleman/Architecture

Builder: The owners

Construction cost/size: $400,000/3,400 square feet; three bedrooms, two full, two half baths

A remodeled West Seattle ranch house has been chosen the 2002 Seattle Times/American Institute of Architects Home of the Year.

Selected from among the 10 open houses the AIA picked last year for publication in this paper's Home/Real Estate section, the winner was designed by Seattle architect David Coleman. It is owned by Kit Cudahy and John Nuler, two veterans of the California film industry who purchased the 1950s house with a remodel in mind.

Instead, Coleman presented them with a plan that salvaged the existing foundation, fireplaces and chimney and replaced almost everything else. "The sketches David showed us basically called for tearing down the house," Nuler said. "Once we got to a certain point, it kind of snowballed."

"Letting go of the rules and constraints of traditional architectural styles allowed us to create a home that is truly responsive to its site, orientation, day lighting and views, as well as to our clients' functional needs and contemporary lifestyle," said Coleman, of David Coleman/Architecture.

The new house has a basement with a family room and half bath, the main floor has a living room, dining room, kitchen, pantry, two bedrooms and a bath and a half. The upper-floor "penthouse suite" contains the master bedroom, dressing room, bath and study.

"We love the openness of it," Cudahy said.

For the exterior, the owners chose prepatinated copper panels and cedar siding. The interior features ebonized oak and stone floors, unpainted plaster walls and fir cabinets.

Construction cost for the 3,400-square-foot home was $400,000. To keep expenses down, Nuler spent two years building it himself. The cost of finishing the 1,100-square-foot basement, which was postponed, is not included in that figure.

COMPACT AND SURPRISING

Whidbey Island

Architects: John DeForest and Lydia Marshall of DeForest Ogden Design Office

Builder: Kamera/Gilles Carpentry

Construction cost/size: $306,000/1,235 square feet; one bedroom, one bath

The intent: To fulfill fabric expert Linda Beeman's request for a house that's "an homage to antique textiles, to be eccentric and have a lot of visual surprises." The architects took pains to site the house along the five-acre property's natural pathways, which loop in and out of light and forest on South Whidbey Island. The house itself is compact and multifunctional: one story, one bedroom, one bath, an open living/dining/kitchen area and an entry closet that (thanks to a stacked washer and dryer) also functions as the laundry room. The architects also purposely gave Beeman dark living spaces (to preserve her antique textiles) as well as light-filled areas in which to escape winter's gloom.

A SHOEBOX TURNED LODGEHOUSE

Bridle Trails, Eastside

Architects: Julia Campbell and Buzz Tenenbom of CTA Design Builders

Builder: CTA Design Builders

Construction cost/size: $468,800/more than 3,200 square feet; four bedrooms, three baths

The intent: To turn a dated, energy-inefficient suburban split-level rambler — what the architects called "basically a big shoebox" — into a vibrant "Northwest contemporary lodgehouse." However, because the Bellevue home sits on an acre-plus of wetlands and woods, building regulations would not allow the house to grow. So the architects removed walls and added large windows to give a sense of spacious openness and frame the pond just outside the living room. The living room's beams were sanded, smooth tree-trunk posts added and the new, relocated fireplace clad in slate. Spaces in the bedroom wing were reconfigured, and new decks and skylights added. Finally, a new, slightly raised metal roof gives the home a much more contemporary appearance.

REACHING FOR THE VIEW

North Seattle

Architect: Joseph Herrin of Heliotrope

Builder: An Urban Co.

Construction cost/size: $375,000/3,732 square feet; four bedrooms, three and a quarter baths

The intent: The lot offered the potential of a panoramic Puget Sound view, which the dated 1953 rambler that sat upon it didn't provide. So Brett Stevens, owner of An Urban Co., took down most of the house and replaced it with four stories (including basement) that nearly doubled the home's size and maximized the view. One way architect Herrin accomplished the latter: By putting the living/dining/kitchen areas one floor above the bedrooms, which themselves are a floor up from the daylight basement. The basement also includes a full guest suite. On the very top is a crow's nest of a den. Special touches include an Italian kitchen-cabinet system, a Japanese soaking tub and huge windows allowing the home to seem light-filled even on the cloudiest of days, all attributes Stevens hoped would convince buyers that his $995,000 sales price was appropriate.

ALTERNATIVE INFILL

Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood

Architect: Brian Runberg and the Runberg Architecture Group

Builder: Brace Development

Construction cost/size: $1.1 million total/up to 2,095 square feet; three bedrooms, two and a half baths each

The intent: This site, behind a one-story office building on an arterial in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood, used to be occupied by a warehouse. It could have been redeveloped into a 20-unit apartment building. Instead, Runberg saw it as an opportunity to provide four high-end condominiums to help meet Seattle's "need for unique and alternative infill housing." Selling for half a million dollars and up, the four condos occupy two buildings sited around a cobblestone courtyard. Each provides three levels of living space atop a two-car garage. Interiors pay homage to the neighborhood's older homes via such traditional finishes as cherry hardwoods and crown moldings.

A CROSS-CULTURAL PRACTICALITY

North Kirkland

Architects: J. William Curtis and Patricia K. Emmons of Curtis & Emmons Architects

Builder: Context Design Build

Construction cost/size: $1.2 million/3,718 square feet; two bedrooms, three and a quarter baths

The intent: To bridge the cultures of a couple with two children — he's from India, she's American — with a Northwest interpretation of vaastu shastra. That's the Indian form of feng shui that stresses a structure's relationship to the land. Thus this North Kirkland two-story home is oriented for maximum Lake Washington views, has cross ventilation in each room and a private inner courtyard with wood-burning fireplace. The owners selected many of their home's unique finishes, including antique wood doors, in Bombay. Still, as the wife says, the intent was to have a house that's "practical, not showy." The result, she says, feels somewhat like a modern Indian village house.

AN EDGY LIVABILITY

Seattle's Central Area

Architect: Mark Travers of Mark Travers Architect

Builder: Barlow Construction

Construction cost/size: $430,000/3,142 square feet; three bedrooms, two and a half baths

The intent: To help Bob Chow and Shirley Low realize their dream of building a modern house on a rare, undeveloped lot in Seattle's Central Area. Travers accomplished it by designing a compact, no-frills floor plan that nevertheless is high on both drama and livability. A three-story "modern aesthetic" (the architect's description), the home's main floor is one story up, which offers privacy and great light. Open spaces, big windows and exposed steel-and-wood beams give it the edgy feel of an urban loft. Atop this floor are the bedrooms, the laundry room and a rooftop deck with Mount Rainier view. A one-bedroom guest suite, garage and entry atrium share the ground floor. Aggressive Internet shopping by Low yielded value-priced luxuries, such as European and Japanese plumbing fixtures and a serpentine chandelier for the entry.

PAVILION STYLE, PRACTICAL EASE

Lake Sammamish

Architect: Brian Brand of Baylis Architects

Builder: Steve Cartan

Construction cost/size: $649,000/2,400 square-foot main house, 500 square-foot detached studio; one bedroom, two baths

The intent: Deena Loveland gave Brand a very unusual request for her home: "I wanted to make it sustainable so I could take down and put up walls and there would be no maintenance." She also wanted Brand to incorporate the newest technology. The result is an open, airy pavilion of a home that has no interior load-bearing walls. Plus its exterior walls are made of a recycled plastic-and-concrete form system finished inside and out with stucco. The home has but one bedroom, two baths. However, it's designed to easily add two more bedrooms — and even a loft — within existing space. Among the low-maintenance finishes are a metal roof and heated concrete floors. Sited on an acre high above Lake Sammamish, both the home and detached studio enjoy lake views.

TRADITIONAL, MADE SIMPLE

Seattle's Mount Baker Area

Architect: Mary Johnston of Johnston Architects

Builder: JRJ Development

Construction cost/size: $720,000/3,292 square feet; four bedrooms, two and a half baths

The intent: This is the first of five for-sale homes, each designed by a different architect, that constitute the new Colman Park neighborhood in Seattle's Mount Baker area. Thus architect Johnston had to divine what the client of a home priced at $1.2 million would want. Her solution was to design a "modified traditional" or, as she explains, "In every detail, we tried to modify from the traditional, so in every choice between ornate and simple, we chose simple." The floor plan is highly functional: a garage and play room on the lower level; kitchen and living, dining, and family rooms on the main level and four bedrooms on the top floor. The master suite, painted a soothing warm gray, offers a Lake Washington view.

AGGRESSIVELY, THOROUGHLY MODERN

Seattle's Fremont neighborhood

Architects: Heather Johnston of Place Architects and Kevin Spence

Builder: Eric Thorsen Construction

Construction cost/size: $802,000/3,226 square feet; one bedroom, two baths

The intent: To replace an earthquake-damaged, much-abused Fremont rental house with an aggressively modern live-work space designed to adapt to the changing needs of its owner. Right now the owner, a self-employed technology expert, needs a place to display his prized 1969 Jaguar. Johnston accomplished that by putting it in the concrete-floored living room and adding access via a window wall of industrial roll-up garage doors. Also featured in the three-story space are an office, a mechanic's workshop, a photo studio and what the owner calls a "critical listening zone" in lieu of a family room. Finishes are edgy and unusual. Example: The white-tiled kitchen with black counters and simple rack shelving purposely looks like a high-school chemistry lab.