Nearpoint Residence

What were the circumstances of receiving the commission for this project?

This project came through a recommendation from a mutual friend in Seattle. The clients, a couple with a young son, were looking for a green and energy efficient home. They had not had great luck with the firms based in Anchorage. Even though our practice does not have an office in Anchorage, we have completed many projects in Alaska and have a strong base in this community. As we have structured our design process and project management around monthly trips for design or construction meetings, it was a natural relationship to undertake the commission.

Can you describe your design process for the building?

On all projects we work iteratively between physical models, computational models, drawings, and analytical metrics. This particular project was informed by four primary considerations:

. to limit use of resources through compactness, energy efficiency, and durability.
. to create relationships between lifestyle, environment, and thermal performance.
. to optimize exterior envelope, aperture, and building systems requirements.
. to form strong visual and spatial ties to landscape and daylight.

One of our first design strategies was to think of the house not as a single domestic structure, but at a smaller scale. We termed these Use Groups; spaces configured to optimize social function, landscape interaction, environmental relationships, and thermal conditions. We believed that if we were able to organize the house in a way that synthesized both social and thermal requirements we would be able give the clients greater control over their energy use. This led to the zoning of the house into three primary types of spaces.

Collective spaces with stable, long term inhabitation and big landscape connections.
Individual spaces with intermittent inhabitation and near landscape connections.
Private spaces with intermittent or night time inhabitation and limited landscape connections.

The resultant formal configuration of the house enabled high performance and environmental zone control between adjacent living areas.

A second design strategy was to minimze the site impact by taking advantage of a small ridge that had been cleared previously. The ridge had a nice relationship to an existing stand of birch trees and provided changing views as one progressed toward its end. This linear nature was developed into sequential spatial organization that responded to the changing landscape character. Beginning with the very near, ground-related forest understory, the house expands in scale as one moves along the ridge to engage the distant panorama of the Alaska Range before returning to an intimate adjacent landscape.

The planning of the house recognized the temporal aspects of inhabitation and provided a variety of spaces that responded to the extreme seasonal change of the North, as well as the daily change of family life. The south deck and the western living space with the adjacent covered deck sought to bridge these swings by providing for distinct winter/daytime spaces as well as summer/evening spaces, respectively.

As the design progressed we explored strategies that integrated alternate energy systems into the overall form of the house. As we worked to optimize this function, the south facing clerestory grew in order to provide more sunlight in to the main living spaces and to provide a roof angle that optimized the solar exposure for photovoltaic and solar hot water panel arrays.

Materials and finishes were selected for performance. Standing-seam metal cladding wraps the building’s exterior walls and roof. Fireproof and durable, it provides a protective shell. Within this shell, softer woods of fir and cedar, like a fleece pullover, were used to clad the surfaces of human contact. Finished in either white or ebony semi-transparent stains, these soft woods sought to be both abstract and materially expressive. Bamboo casework and blackened steel accents were specified to compliment the environmentally honest palate.

How does the completed building compare to the project as designed? Were there any dramatic changes between the two and/or lessons learned during construction?

The completed building is very close to the early design proposal. There were, however, a couple noteworthy changes during the design process. The first was the addition of the loft space. As we worked to optimize solar gain along the south facing clerestory the volume of the interior space grew and we were able to occupy that space with a loft. We had been very focused on limiting the interior living space to 2,000 sf, so this extra space gave the house a bit of breathing room for a play space.

The second change related to the idea of an operable house. Given the dramatic range of environmental conditions between summer and winter in the sub-arctic, we were interested in designing a house that did not compromise daylight and views for the sake of energy efficiency. Our initial design proposal had large insulating panels that slid over expansive windows allowing the owners to essentially close down the house in winter. As we worked to develop this system issues of condensation between panel and window, as well as the mechanics and storage of panels led to the determination that this was not a practical strategy. Instead, allowances were made for the future installation of more conventional roll-shutters that would pocket into the exterior wall assembly.

How does the building compare to other projects in your office, be it the same or other building types?

The majority of our single family residences have been about the same scale as this project. This seems to stem from either limited lot areas on our more urban homes or to clients’ valuing smaller homes. We have also completed some compact multifamily projects of three to six dwellings.

In all of our projects we seek a certain amount of formal legibility. This usually means a strong building form, or figure, which is transformed through the specific configuration of both interior and exterior program and spaces. Even though the Nearpoint Residence resulted in a configuration of parts, there was a strong desire to create a single, landscape-sized gesture. Standing seam steel siding was used as the primary cladding material for both the walls and roof of the home in an effort to pull these parts together within a single, legible, building envelope. We’ve used this approach on both our landscape-situated and urban projects.

How does the building relate to contemporary architectural trends, be it sustainability, technology, etc.?

With the clients’ initial goals for sustainability, the building incorporates several approaches that we find valuable to this agenda. For example, we designed a compact home with small private spaces and a single, large, public space. We provided the clients with a greater amount of control over their interior environment through careful zoning of their mechanical systems and the installed lighting control systems. Sometimes, we believe in a certain amount a strategic inefficiency, like in the main living space, where daylight, views, and quality of life are of higher value than strict energy considerations. This strategic inefficiency was then offset by stricter limitations and greater efficiency in the private space. All the materials used for the project were generally durable, recyclable, rapidly renewing or sustainably harvested or produced.

Are there any new/upcoming projects in your office that this building’s design and construction has influenced?

We are currently designing a similarly scaled home in the vicinity of the Nearpoint Residence. Even though this new home has site characteristics and specific program needs that are very different, several of the principles that developed during the design of the Nearpoint Residence are being furthered in this project. For example, in this new home the notion of progressing through a site is being explored more in section than in plan. Where the Nearpoint Residence was stretched along a ridge, this home is tucked into the forest. We are currently exploring how to situate one within differing vertical spaces of the site, spaces that stretch from understory to canopy, sky, mountains, and the distant views as one reaches the roof.

E-mail interview conducted by John Hill