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Modern Architecture
Houzz Tour: Raw Materials Form an Open Passive-Solar House
An artist-engineer collaborates with a designer to create an exposed-wood home for work and creativity
When residential designer Matthew Daby showed his client the plan he’d come up with for the home she wanted to build on a small lot in Portland, Oregon, he says he “knew within a minute that I’d missed it.” Now he says that miss was an integral part of the design process, helping both client and designer focus on what really mattered.
The client had felt the first design was “too precious,” Daby says. “She wanted it to be livable and adaptable,” a space that would function as an art studio and a home without the traditional formal set of rooms. “She wasn’t interested in a big kitchen with an island,” he says. “She wanted the house to connect to the yard in a dramatic way, and wanted rooms that would make the most of how light moved across the house throughout the day and the seasons.”
The client had felt the first design was “too precious,” Daby says. “She wanted it to be livable and adaptable,” a space that would function as an art studio and a home without the traditional formal set of rooms. “She wasn’t interested in a big kitchen with an island,” he says. “She wanted the house to connect to the yard in a dramatic way, and wanted rooms that would make the most of how light moved across the house throughout the day and the seasons.”
The original plan called for a wood-burning fireplace on the far wall. But midway through construction, the client decided she wanted a high-efficiency freestanding wood-burning stove. Daby says he didn’t want to “ruin the rhythm” of the wall that anchored the space, so he covered it with painted cement board with aluminum channels to create a grid pattern.
Sliding glass doors to the left of the stove connect the room to the yard.
Sliding glass doors to the left of the stove connect the room to the yard.
A rolling pullout cart that disappears into the wall provides storage space for most of the client’s crafting materials. When the cart is pushed in, it disappears into the wall.
The light fixture is the client’s own. She designed, built and affixed it to a pulley system so she can raise and lower it as needed.
High windows allow for interesting plays of light and shadow across the staircase throughout the day.
The kitchen sits at the far end of the great room. “The client wasn’t interested in anything fancy,” Daby says. She wanted open shelves because “she’s interested in the everyday rhythm you get out of the basic material items of life.”
A raw stainless steel backsplash and laminate countertops with a plywood edge continue the emphasis on simple, basic materials throughout the house. Daby says that even though the client didn’t want an island, he did design the space to accommodate one in the future, just in case. “I always have a little bit of resell in the back of my head,” he says.
A raw stainless steel backsplash and laminate countertops with a plywood edge continue the emphasis on simple, basic materials throughout the house. Daby says that even though the client didn’t want an island, he did design the space to accommodate one in the future, just in case. “I always have a little bit of resell in the back of my head,” he says.
In the main-floor bathroom, cement tile around the tub and walls matches the color of the polished cement floor. Daby and the client “went around and around” trying to find something visually interesting for the walls. The client loved this colored tile, and she created the layout and pattern herself and then labeled each tile so the installers could put them up according to her design.
During construction, the client decided she liked the idea of turning a window visible from the kitchen into “a showcase,” Daby says. With floor-to-ceiling glass everywhere else in the house, the small window is “an oddity” that frames the view. A wide sill with a perforated steel lining provides space for displaying a rotating collection of beloved objects.
A reading nook on the upstairs landing benefits from light streaming through the translucent plastic wall of the bathroom behind it. The client “isn’t afraid of expressing the raw materiality of things,” Daby says. So the construction materials usually concealed inside a wall — yellow electrical wires, electric switch boxes, framer’s marks — are visible through the plastic.
The client also added “random things from her collection and put them in the wall before we put the plastic on,” Daby says. “She believes there’s something really beautiful about seeing the raw structure.”
The client also added “random things from her collection and put them in the wall before we put the plastic on,” Daby says. “She believes there’s something really beautiful about seeing the raw structure.”
A basic cable railing frames the upstairs area. The artwork on the wall to the right is the client’s own. She created the sculpture out of corrugated cardboard.
The house sits in an established neighborhood filled with 1940s Cape Cods and bungalows from the 1920s and ’30s. “We wanted to respect the scale of the neighborhood even if it was a contemporary house,” Daby says. “We tried to make sure the house was still going to read pleasantly from the street in the context of the houses around it.”
The extensive glass on the south side of the house captures as much Pacific Northwest sunlight as possible. In summer, when the sun is angled higher in the sky, the overhangs provide shade for those windows at the hottest time of year.
The client installed the large white sun shade on the western side of the house (on the left in the photo) to create a covered patio where she grows a variety of plants.
The client installed the large white sun shade on the western side of the house (on the left in the photo) to create a covered patio where she grows a variety of plants.
Sliding doors and panels on the exterior of the house let the client control the amount of light and fresh air. In the photo here, all panels are pulled back to open the house to the outdoors. One of the home’s two sleeping spaces is visible in the middle.
On warm days, slatted wood panels on sliding barn door tracks provide shade but still let air and light into the interior.
On cooler days, the wood panels can be pushed back and sliding polycarbonate plastic panels pulled forward to keep warm air inside and still let light in. “It’s an active passive-solar house,” Daby says. “It relies on the client to move things around to block the sun or let more of it in.”
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More on Houzz
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Find a local designer to help create your dream home
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House at a Glance
Who lives here: A woman who is an artist and an engineer, and her teenage son
Location: Portland, Oregon
Size: 1,588 square feet (148 square meters); two bedrooms, two bathrooms
Designer: Matthew Daby of m.o.daby design
Daby started over, and this time he hit the target with a small but spacious passive-solar house that maximizes the beauty and imperfections in raw materials — corrugated metal, plywood, concrete — with a Pacific Northwest modern feel.
“It’s very rare that I get a client who will push me to the point where I’m the logical one,” Daby says. “I kept saying, ‘Are you sure?’ and she kept saying, ‘Yup. I’m sure.’ She wanted something that was uniquely her. This is the house she plans to live in for the rest of her life. We both had a lot of fun designing it.”
The great room, shown here, is “a flexible living space where the client spends most of her time,” Daby says. It’s set up more like a traditional living room, but “it’s not uncommon for her to move the furniture around and have a big studio table in the middle of that space, or a dining table, or her loom.”