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Architects: Johnston Architects
- Area: 3859 ft²
- Year: 2009
Text description provided by the architects. With sweeping views of the Cascades, Lake Union and just blocks from the exciting and eclectic Fremont district, this project consists of seven private town homes with shared underground parking in a cornerstone location. Sustainable building practices were employed throughout the design process and the project is seeking LEED Platinum certification status. Johnston Architects decided that in order to achieve the LEED rating for this project it was imperative to embed sustainable principles into the process from the get-go encompassing both the natural and urban environments while utilizing unique green practices.
The town homes are carefully arranged in a U-shape, which provides for a central garden courtyard/community open space. This orientation allows for good southern exposure, vital indoor/outdoor connections, and also provides access to and from the garage below. A screen wall blanketed in vegetation wraps the community yielding both visual and acoustic privacy, rarities in an urban environment. The project’s innovative design, resourceful features and simplistic beauty truly exemplify a design shaped for the culture of Seattle.
The project is designed with a major emphasis on water efficiency and storm water recycling. Rainwater is collected from the rooftop and courtyard areas and conveyed to a large cistern in the garage, where it is filtered and then re-used on an as-needed basis. This building is projected to save over 50% of the energy used in a standard Washington code-based building of the same size. The project is targeting a 50% reduction over IECC (International Energy Conservation Code) as well as potable water use reduction targeted at over 100,000 gallons per year for the project relative to a standard code-based construction. The project also includes the use of FSC certified wood and low-VOC emitting, non-toxic materials and finishes. Significant effort has been made to substantially reduce the use of products containing PVC and urea formaldehyde.
The interior floor plan incorporates design principles to encourage daylighting, expansive view corridors, natural ventilation patterns, flexible space creation and more to provide the resident with a more usable and better experienced interior environment. The main floor interior spaces include earth-tone concrete floors, and the painted trim at the floor and the windows makes a contemporary statement while the detailing at the cabinetry, built-in bookshelves, stairs and railings reflect the palette for this project.
The upper floor spaces include sustainable wood floors, slatted wood ceiling trim elements in corridors and tiling in the bathroom to accentuate character. These design and material decisions reflect the understated yet refined palette for this project while allowing the unit owners to individualize their homes to their own tastes and styles.
