Bird’s Eye View

A cabin turns into a home

By Vanessa Salvia
Photos by Jeremy Bronson

A ONE-ROOM CABIN PERCHED AT THE base of a steep, wooded hill was a suitable weekend getaway, but it needed more space, easy access to the outdoors, and a way to take in the expansive views to become a suitable permanent home. One couple got that with the help of Eugene architect Nir Pearlson.

In 2004, Washington State natives Bob and Nancy bought 25 acres in Cheshire, and over three years cleared the land and built a 480-square-foot cabin to house them on weekends and vacations. In 2010, they erected a large shop with offices and storage, and moved from Seattle in 2013. After researching several architects, the couple selected Pearlson because they appreciated his sustainable philosophy, clean lines, and connection to nature.

The original cabin is still there but is unrecognizable, as two wings comprising the guest rooms and the main living area were attached to either side of it, following the hill’s contours and linking the home to the outdoors in multiple ways.

“The bedroom is up high, like being [in] a bird’s nest with higher views,” says Pearlson. “The main floor is strongly connected to all sides, so it’s easy to move in and out of it to get outdoors, and there’s a visual connection with the outdoors everywhere.”

Bob’s father now lives in the guest quarters, where a glass panel above a sliding door encloses his space. “The glass opens it up for him even if the doors are closed,” Nancy says, “and we can look in and see if his lights are on.”

The home’s length, incorporating the 1,201-square-foot addition, and the abundance of windows make it seem bigger than it is. “The specific thing we wanted was lots of windows and for it to be really accessible to the outside, physically as well as mentally,” Nancy says.

The floors in the central room and kitchen are rectangular porcelain Emser tile, with maple in the space that transitions from the mudroom door to an outside deck. “We knew we would be mixing woods so we kept it light,” Bob says. The couple deftly combined pine window frames, cherry cabinetry, sycamore furniture, and fir beams in the living area and dining room, creating a restful atmosphere throughout the two rooms.

The 11-foot table is useful not only as a dining spot, but also as a general gathering spot. “We did a lot of jigsaw puzzles there this winter!” recalls Nancy. In Pearlson’s words, the dining room became “an expression of timber” with its stout fir beams, which also support the second-floor master suite. “The beams are not kiln dried,” says Bob, “so they’re starting to ‘check’ now, which is giving us the character we wanted.”

The couple originally wanted the beams to continue through the outer wall and be part of the overhang on the patio, but Pearlson convinced them that it would be more energy efficient not to do that. The beams visually continue to the outside, but they do not go through the wall. A solar array on the expansive south-facing patio helps keep their energy usage to a minimum in the summertime.

Nancy stained the cherry wood cabinetry in the kitchen with a gray Sherwin-Williams stain to create a more neutral palette. The color scheme is calm except for a pop of chartreuse paint in the laundry room, which is visible from just the right spot in the kitchen. Nancy, an avid bread baker, chose a Caesarstone island for the kitchen that can be heated. “You can’t count on regular countertops to be warm enough to rise bread,” she says, “and it’s great for setting a coffee cup on so it doesn’t get cold right away.”

The downstairs powder room off the kitchen has a sycamore cabinet with a curved front that the couple liked so much their cabinetmaker replicated it on the buffet. The light-filled staircase leads to the private bedroom upstairs. “The railing on the stairs mimics the railing used outdoors on the porch,” Bob notes. “The porch railing comes in kit form, but this one we had to fabricate with lighter wire and lighter posts so it wouldn’t look as heavy as it does out there.”

Upstairs, a nearly 8-foot-wide-by-9-foot tall cherry cabinet hides their clothes. The bathroom, with a heated floor, is a small rectangle, but looks more interesting thanks to a glass panel partitioning off the shower and two showerheads that can be either rain showers or handheld sprayers.

Fir beams in the master suite and endless views give the feeling of being in a bird’s nest. The green beams occasionally drip sap, but the couple doesn’t mind that inconvenience, knowing that the beams are aging into the rustic, handsome look they want. “We’re starting to lose sight of the cabin!” laughs Bob. “We love what this has turned into.”

2015 People’s Choice Award – Residential (Submittal)

Submittal for Residential Category
Featuring: Romance Ridge Residence

In this competition which took place at the Broadway Commerce Center in downtown Eugene during the month of October, local architects and landscape architects present their featured projects in various categories, and the citizens of Eugene cast their vote for the best project in each category.

HOME ON THE RIDGE

PROJECT:
Romance Ridge Residence
Hall Road, Cheshire, Oregon

ARCHITECT:
Nir Pearlson Architect, Inc.:
Nir Pearlson, Rachel Auerbach, Roger Ota

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT:
Lovinger Robertson Landscape Architects

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER:
Woodchuck Engineering

SOIL / GEOTECH ENGINEERING:
K & A Engineering

GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
Six Degrees Construction

PHOTOS:
Bronson Studios Photography

CHALLENGE

• Convert a weekend getaway into a permanent homestead.

• Preserve and incorporate an existing one-room cabin into a home that combines a cozy sense of shelter with transparency and expansive views.

CONCEPTS

• The placement, scale, geometry, and design of the residence were informed by the topography, views, solar exposure, trees, and structures existing on site. Two discrete wings were developed, comprising the guest wing (the repurposed cabin) and the main living wing. Splayed to follow the site’s contours and capture panoramic views, the two volumes are hinged at the entry hall. This central link opens directly into each wing, and spills onto two covered patios.

• The great room’s lower roof lifts North towards the forested slope above, bringing consistent Northern daylight, while supporting a solar panel array and sheltering expansive, south-facing patios.

• The dining room’s stout timber-framed ceiling supports the second-floor master suite. Echoing the original cabin’s orientation, the upper roof tilts to the South, reaching up to the sun’s path and to distant views of the Cascades.

• A tower element extending North from the great room form encloses the light-filled stairway, a mudroom, and utility areas on the first floor, and the master bath on the second floor.

• A landscaped courtyard, a swimming pool, a food garden and meadows of native plants will provide a harmonious transition between the home and the surrounding forest.

SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES

• Wrapped in a double-insulated wall, the home is conditioned with a super-efficient heat pump split system.

• Abundant daylight is provided via windows, doors, clerestories and skylights.

• The south-facing roof carries a solar PV array, and deep overhangs reduce summer heat gain.

2015 People’s Choice Awards – Interiors (Submittal)

Submittal for Interiors Category

Featuring: UO Architecture & Allied Arts Lawrence Hall Remodel

In this competition which took place at the Broadway Commerce Center in downtown Eugene during the month of October, local architects and landscape architects present their featured projects in various categories, and the citizens of Eugene cast their vote for the best project in each category.

EXPANDING CREATIVITY

PROJECT:
UO Architecture & Allied Arts Lawrence Hall Remodel
Awbrey Lane, Eugene

OWNER:
University of Oregon Capital Construction

ARCHITECT:
Nir Pearlson Architect, Inc.:
Nir Pearlson, Roger Ota, Dan Abrahamson

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER:
Johnson Broderick Engineering

ELECTRICAL ENGINEER:
Paradigm Engineering

MECHANICAL DESIGN / BUILD:
Fresh Aire Engineering, Inc.

GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
Dorman Construction

PHOTOS
LightWorks Photography

CHALLENGE

• Re-invent a cluster of dated hallways, classrooms, and offices into a light-filled, state-of-the-art communal administrative center, a student service center, and a conference room.

CONCEPTS

• The central hallway walls were removed to create a spacious, multi-purpose hub where • students can congregate, interact, study, and view department course postings.

• An adjacent classroom was expanded into an open administrative office shared by 5 department administrators.

• A solid bearing wall between the open office and the hub was replaced with a massive beam spanning above oversized sliding doors – securing the office by night, and providing complete connectivity and openness by day.

• Dropped ceilings, ducts and conduits were removed, revealing a historic deck-and-purlin ceiling, and allowing new transoms and skylights to flood the tall spaces with daylight.

• Historic windows, industrial structural elements, and exposed ducts are complimented with contemporary light fixtures and office furniture.

SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES

• Skylights and transoms bring daylight deep into the building, while new roof insulation and insulated windows prevent heat loss.

• High-efficiency zoned mechanical systems replaced aging heaters, introducing fresh air into spaces.

• Upgraded lighting includes super efficient LED fixtures, zoned controls, occupancy & daylight sensors.

• Historic windows were reclaimed on site and repurposed as conference room wall relites.

Indoor-outdoor interplay

Put two graphic designers in such a visual setting — steep green forests, narrow valley below, misty ridges, full sunny days and wide starry nights — and you get a poster house for indoor-outdoor connections.

Bob Mosqueda and Nancy Kinnear so love the outdoors, they bought 25 acres of Lane County hinterland about 10 years ago as their weekend escape from traffic-clogged Seattle. The couple first built a small cabin to get their country feet wet, and now have expanded that unit into a 1,700-square-foot, work-from-home abode rich in glass, wood, natural colors and front-to-back open living.

“Initially I wanted a lodge feel, and I think in an abstract kind of way we did get that,” Nancy says.

For sponging up their classic Western Oregon foothills setting, Nancy and Bob turned to a pair of Eugene firms: Nir Pearlson Architect Inc. for design expertise, and Six Degrees Construction for timber-frame elements and other craftsmanship.

“What we were trying to do,” Bob sums up, “is bring the outdoors in. We love the outdoors.”

Creative tweaks

But for such “connectivity to site,” as architect Pearlson calls it, he and associate Roger Ota had to play the angles with roofs and interior spaces.

“It was kind of big deal how we could stitch it all together,” Pearlson says.

They could have played it safe and built straight as an arrow off the existing cabin. But by angling new construction a tad, Bob and Nancy widened the view and increased sun exposure. Following the site’s existing contours also reduced the foundation’s cost, though some piers were still required to bear the house on stable native soil.

Most striking, the home now has three main shed roofs, each at different slopes. The original cabin’s roof “reaches” for the sun at a modest upward slope, but right next to it the new main roof slopes slightly down for two strategic reasons: exposing a bank of solar electric panels to southern sun, and overhanging main living spaces just enough for shading when the summer sun is at its highest angle.

A third shed roof gets dramatic, this one for the home’s new upstairs bedroom and bathroom. It soars toward the opposite ridge and celestial bodies beyond.

“It’s the ecliptic,” Nancy explains. “We get the path of the planets and the sun and the moon, everything runs across. So we get the moon as it’s setting over there, and rising over here.”

Beyond solar angles, the roof sections have wide overhangs for sheltering outdoor spaces, namely an outdoor patio with barbecue and sink.

“I needed to have a covered space for my barbecues, and so 365 I can be out there barbecuing,” Bob says. “That’s a big part of our culinary experience here. I needed to have that covered, a place I could be protected from the weather.”

Warm, colorful interior

Inside, hefty timbers of Douglas fir support open living from bow to stern, or from original cabin — now a suite for Bob’s elderly father — to new kitchen. “We wanted that long view, because that makes the place feel immense,” Bob says in reference to the relatively small and narrow floor plan.

Look close, and you see how timber framing by Six Degrees creates subtle dimensions of space, Pearlson points out. Some walls, for example, extend right up to support pillars; others are recessed slightly back from the columns, both for a timber aesthetic and slightly expanded space.

Above the dining room area, Bob and Nancy chose a ceiling of exposed wood framing. Fir beams running beneath tongue-and-groove hem-fir ceiling decking — all in support of the second-floor bed/bath above — play off the home’s forested environment.

But any additional exposed ceiling framing “would be too much statement for us,” Bob says. “We didn’t want that much wood.”

Nancy is the expert with interior wall paints: “The colors are all brought in from what we see outside.”

Plaster walls and ceilings of dark, earthy orange are “the color of the oak leaves when they’re drying and in the sunshine,” she says in a nod to oaks beside the house. Lighter orange interior paint evokes the property’s clay soils, while neutral gray expanses stir moods of fog, rocks and bark on trees.

She also chose organic colors for the home’s exterior siding of specialty cut cement panels. Lichen green, inspired by surrounding trees, colors the upper panels; tree-trunk dark coats lower runs.

The couple have their indulgences. Electric coils heat the kitchen island’s wide Caesarstone countertop of crushed granite to as high as 80 degrees. “It’s perfect for raising bread, for keeping your coffee warm in the morning, or your plates from not getting too cold,” Nancy says.

Outside, next to a big retaining wall of basalt boulders, is a propane-heated swimming pool within a concrete patio. The couple also have a two-story workshop with offices and guest bed upstairs.

The home’s concrete-based siding will hold paint for years, and while they have a garden, Bob and Nancy plan to enjoy their home without a lot of weeding.

“It feels more like home than any place I have ever lived, including where I grew up as a child, which to me is really pretty important,” Bob says. “I have great memories of that childhood home, but this is really where I belong.”

By Kelly Fenley

Build Small and Go Home

By Felicia Oliver                                                                                                    Photos by Jeremy Bronson

You’re thinking about buying a new home and wondering if you should go big or small. Perhaps your budget prevents you from going too big. But just how much home is enough?

The median size of a completed single-family house in 2014 was 2,453 square feet according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By contrast, you may have heard about so-called tiny houses, defined as 400 square feet or less — for those very serious about living a simple, frugal life.

You don’t have to go tiny, but a smaller than average home might fit the bill. Sarah Susanka, architect and well-known author of the Not So Big House book series, describes a “Not So Big House” as one not as big as most people are building, focused on quality rather than quantity.

Her book series came about as she was working as a residential architect.

“People would come into my office asking first of all for a size,” she says. “I want 3,000 square feet … I looked at their budget and I knew if they wanted 3,000 square feet, it would be absolutely bare bones, or there would be absolutely no possibility of building their house.”

She wanted to help clients use their money more effectively, tailoring their home not only to their budget but their lifestyle. She says homes should scale to the way occupants actually live and what appeals to them aesthetically and sustainably — not just in terms of materials or how much energy it uses, but also in desirableness to maintain.

“If something isn’t beautiful, people won’t tend to look after it,” Susanka says. “You could have a house that is ‘green’ but if it’s not beautiful, I would contend that it’s not sustainable.”

It’s been 10 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. Marianne Cusato, designer of the so-called Katrina Cottages, admits to being inspired by Susanka’s Not So Big House concept.

“The initial idea of the cottage was something that would have dignity,” Cusato says. “Why [live in] the bottom of the barrel? Why not something that’s loveable and livable?”

Congress appropriated $400 million for an alternative emergency housing program based on Cusato’s award-winning, 308 square foot Katrina Cottage design (designs range up to 1,807 square feet). These small, sturdy homes could be delivered at the cost of a FEMA trailer, and many were used in Louisiana and Mississippi after the 2005 hurricane. Some models have options allowing expansion over time, so many of these cottages are still in use today.

Saying it’s hard enough to afford a house under the best circumstances, Cusato’s not surprised Katrina Cottages have been sought by those not in need of emergency or disaster housing. In her book, The Just Right Home, she addresses figuring out how you want to live, not just where.

“It’s not location, location, location,” Cusato says. “It’s proximity, proximity, proximity … where that place is in connection with the things you need and want to do in a day. It defines your life. Is family dinner important? If so, consider where you work and where your spouse works, and where your children’s activities are.”

Rob and Linda Mahan say they spent much of their 35-year marriage talking about building a small home with quality craftsmanship designed for how they lived, not, in Rob’s words, “how tradition dictates.”

They discovered Susanka’s books and in the appendix Michael Klement’s architectural firm listed in Ann Arbor, Mich., close to where they eventually built their home. The couple bought a 10-acre parcel adjoining Linda’s sister’s family, oriented for the passive solar heating they wanted. Klement’s firm designed a 1,600 square foot, highly energy-efficient home on the land. But there were tradeoffs. One was not having a designated living room.

“We have a kitchen and what you would call a living room or family room, which is basically all one space,” Mahan says. “But we have a very large island separating the two.”

It suits, Mahan says, because he and Linda mostly eat dinner while watching TV. And he built a long hunting table with drop leaves to accommodate six people for when they have dinner guests.

Julie Hulme and her husband, Rob Handy, went even smaller. They lived in a 625 square foot renovated chicken coop along the Willamette River in Oregon before they “upsized” to a new 825 square foot home.

Hulme says they are avid organic gardeners. “We spend a lot of time outside, so we wanted a home interfacing directly with our garden.”

She says she wanted a home design that let the inside and outside spaces intersect while maintaining a sense of coziness and intimacy.

“I had 22 house plants in my old home,” Hulme says. “I have four in our new home, because with the design elements bringing the outside in, it feels like we are embedded in a garden.”

Both Hulme’s and the Mahans’ homes have energy-efficient features that would likely cost more in a larger home — more materials, more space to heat and cool, etc.—so building small made “green” more affordable. So beware — a small, feature-loaded home may cost as much or more than a less-appointed larger home.

Because professionals who understand and embrace the Not So Big House concept aren’t easy to find, Susanka has a Home Professionals Directory on her Not So Big House website listing architects, builders and interior designers from around the country who do this kind of work. And she offers house plans for sale — her own and links to others she recommends.

Though important when building any custom home, carefully selecting your architect and spending time to make sure they understand how you want to live in your new home is particularly important when building a small home.

“The first time [their architect] Nir [Pearlson] came over, he must have spent a good three hours just in our current home,” Hulme says. “We talked about how we use the current space we live in, what we liked about it, what we would like different.”

“Know what kind of lifestyle your home requires,” Linda Mahan says. “We had energy goals, lifestyle goals and entertainment goals. You can frame those millions of decisions [you have to make] around that.”

Linda Mahan says she’s seen more people build a smaller house with nice materials, and as a result, “They want to be in their house.”

Rob Mahan concurs.

“The one down side to building a house like this,” he says, “is that it really makes it hard to go on vacation.”

Felicia Oliver is an award-winning freelance writer and editor with more than 15 years’ experience, including 10 years in the home building and general construction industry. She has written about green building, sales and marketing, home builder business operations and design.

Back to the Future

By Paul Omundson
Photos by Jeremy Bronson

SOMETIMES A PIANO NEEDS TUNING. SO IT IS WITH homes, too, especially for a small, modest mid-century abode built in the 1960s, sitting atop the Hendricks Hills neighborhood. The house’s style, popular from the mid-1930s to the 1960s, was kick-started by Frank Lloyd Wright and features structures with a lot of windows and open floor plans linking interior spaces to outdoors.

This link to the outdoors especially makes a lot of sense when you live in one of Eugene’s most lush neighborhoods, where the city’s oldest park (Hendricks Park) and its famous rhododendrons and mature forest lap into yard and garden.

“It’s a phenomenal site, and the beauty of this location is the outdoors,” says Nir Pearlson, whose architectural firm was retained by owners Ellie and John Becker. Ellie remembers taking walks in Hendricks Park as a child. After being away for a while, she came full circle to live in Eugene again. She and her husband pounced when the opportunity arose to purchase the 55-year-old home a dozen years ago. With her background in classical music she appreciated that the original owners designed the living room around a Steinway grand piano. That particular instrument, selected by Fritz Steinway himself, was later donated to the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance. “My upright Baldwin piano is in the same spot,” she says, smiling.

But the charming home needed tuning—a third bedroom was required so the girls could each have their own room, a family activity area was desired for the parents’ art and for the kids to hang out, and there were a lot of long-in-the-tooth odds and ends.

With a deft hand, Pearlson and his crew needed to add only 400 square feet, bringing the total area of the one-level, three bedroom, two bathroom home to 2,600 square feet. “We didn’t want to change the nature of what was already there,” he says, “just express things in a cleaner, more efficient way.”

An important goal for the Beckers was reconnecting with the outdoors and recapturing spectacular north views. A key culprit was a 250-square-foot solarium that blocked the outside from the bedrooms. Not only did it face the wrong way, but the space had devolved into a cluttered storage room with little purpose.

Pearlson’s team moved to dismantle the room and reclaim the area for a deck off the master bedroom suite, with indoor-outdoor connections a top priority. Today, it’s a space Ellie loves, and she often starts her day out there, meditating and drinking in the natural scenery that the old solarium blocked off.

Then there was an issue of the front door nobody ever used. Since parking for guests and residents was on the north side of the house, away from that front door, everyone used the nearest entry, a side door that happened to lead right into John’s office. That became the de facto front entrance and his quiet, serene think space became irreparably interrupted.

John’s office was moved to a more private area where the utility room had been previously, and the latter was repositioned closer to the bedrooms, where it should have been in the first place.

The de facto front entry was reshaped into the official entry, with a large door flanked by sidelights, allowing natural light to stream in with views outdoors.

Pearlson’s team pushed the entry wall inwards, so that what was once an interior wood floor space became the front outdoor weatherized porch. They also added decorative elements to the new outdoor space along with integrated stonework extending from the adjacent stone patio.

A good example of taking an existing feature and making it better was a wall in the living room. “We thickened it and made it the dividing line between the public and private parts of the house,” Pearlson explains. “On one side is the entry, dining, kitchen, and new community room, then beyond are the girls’ bedrooms and master suite with its four elements: bedroom, master bath, closet, and deck.”

The crew extended the existing wall from 22 to 42 feet and strengthened its presence by extending it to the outdoors, helping link inside and outside. This thickened white wall, with all its delightful nooks and cubbies, serves as a distinctive three-dimensional element that allows Ellie to artistically, poetically add decorative flourishes.

“She has a real understanding of colors, lights, furniture, and modern décor, and did a great job dressing up the home,” Pearlson says in admiration. “It was her idea to include two boldly colored barn doors.”

The new 200-square-foot community room, once the outside entry patio, is now an inside space with numerous connections to the back garden that were never there before.

A special project element was making the girls’ “dream wish” come true and adding, at their request, a secret passageway between their rooms.

Today, the home is realigned and fully in tune with those awesome north views. The backyard to the south has been reclaimed, too, primarily by removing trees that were shading too much, leveling uneven ground, and defining the new, larger garden/lawn area with a retaining wall, made with rocks excavated on-site.

“I think one of the greatest things Nir and his team did—besides the extended wall in the living room, which is beautiful,” Ellie adds, “is punch through the east wall, extending a hall and allowing for the morning light to travel all the way to the living room. The window seat there frames it perfectly.”

“This is how our team likes to work,” Pearlson emphasizes. “We didn’t come in and say all this has to go. There were really strong architectural elements that only needed clarifying. We just strengthened the existing bones.”

The Next Big Thing Is Small

By Nir Pearlson

Yesterday’s fun

The large home, seemingly inseparable from the American Dream, is in fact a recent development. A product of 20th century socio-economic trends, big houses were fueled by a booming economy, permissive land-use regulations, streamlined manufacturing, and suburban sprawl. Between 1950 and 2004, the average American home grew from 983 SF to 2,349 SF (National Association of Home Builders).

Today’s Problems

Two centuries of rapid industrial development, population growth, and increasing resource extraction has resulted in accelerated environmental degradation. Throughout the world, factors such as over-crowded communities and unequal distribution of resources continue to deepen the rich/poor divide, fraying the social fabric. The world as we know it is dramatically changing.

Today’s Solutions

As individuals and communities adapt to our changing world, the notion of going back to basics is shaping new living arrangements. The romantic small cabin has morphed into a hip 21st Century villa through the work of homesteaders, builders, designers, developers and writers like Sarah Susanka, author of the Not So Big House book series.

As sustainability has become paramount to citizens, communities, and organizations throughout the world, the small house has come to represent eco-conscious living: A small footprint preserves land and minimizes resource extraction, and the compact form reduces energy use. Often supplemented with high-performing envelope and high-efficiency equipment, the modern small house is cheap to heat and cool. According to a 2010 report, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality found that “reducing home size by 50 percent results in a projected 36 percent reduction in lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.”

The small-house movement has progressed beyond the alternative realm, gaining strength within main-stream America, whose average household size declined from 3.1 to 2.6 people between 1970 and 2012 (US Census Bureau). Small homes appeal to diverse demographics: retirees seeking to downsize, families prioritizing affordability and sustainability, and younger folks preferring agility and mobility over cargo and stability.

Endorsing and promoting compact living and urban infill, communities across North America have drafted land-use regulations that encourage construction of small homes on already-developed properties, introducing the Accessory Dwellings Unit (ADU) housing prototype. Such accessory structures are gaining popularity and the ADU’s minimal code-mandated footprint is touted as an added-value feature.

How Can it Work?

After decades of believing that a bigger house is a better house, it seems daunting to fit our active lifestyle into a modest footprint. Planning homes that are both compact and expansive requires creativity, discipline, and careful integration of small-house design principles. These may include overlapping activity areas, linking spaces into a continuous flow, defining sub-areas within larger spaces, utilizing space-saving elements, allowing for long views, carving cozy alcoves, maintaining visual connections with the outdoors, and providing ample daylighting.

Right Here, Right Now

Consistent with Eugene’s reputation for environmental consciousness, our local designers, architects, developers, and builders have taken on the challenge of creating small houses with big impact. Neighborhoods in and around our metro area are dotted with exemplars of super-small lots, efficient townhouses, not-so-big homes, ADU’s, cottages, and movable mini-dwellings. A recent Tounton Press book, Cabins & Cottages and Other Small Places, includes projects by local architects David Edrington, Michael Fifield, Erin Moore, and Nir Pearlson.

Tomorrow

The Demand Institute’s May 2012 report The Shifting Nature of US Housing Demand, predicts that “The size of an average new home is expected to continue to fall…” As the small house movement leads us toward positive change and appropriate living patterns, may we all consider going small!

2014 People’s Choice Awards -Interiors (Submittal)

Submittal for Interiors Category
Featuring: JNB Trucking

In this competition which took place at the Lane County Home Improvement Show, local architects and landscape architects present their featured projects in various categories, and the citizens of Eugene cast their vote for the best project in each category.

TRANSPORTATION TRANSFORMATION

PROJECT:
JNB Trucking
Awbrey Lane, Eugene

OWNER:
JNB Trucking

ARCHITECT:
Nir Pearlson Architect, Inc.:
Nir Pearlson, Rachel Auerbach, Roger Ota, Dan Abrahamson

CIVIL ENGINEER:
Poage Engineering

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER:
Johnson Broderick Engineering

MECHANICAL DESIGN / BUILD:
Innovative Air, Inc.

ELECTRICAL DESIGN / BUILD:
J B Electric, Inc.

GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
2 G Construction

CHALLENGE

• Design a new headquarters for a local trucking company.
• Site the new building to advance the organization’s brand, without impeding truck maneuverability and operations.

CONCEPTS

• Set along the street, the building welcomes clients and truckers back from the road with its familiar vernacular form.
• Respecting northwest climate, deep eaves protect the windows and the roof folds to shelter front and back entries.
• Perimeter offices open their windows out to the surrounding fields and link into the spacious, and their doors into the spacious light-filled common room.
• Below an interior transom, barn doors separate the common and break rooms, or merge the spaces during all-company meetings.
• As a part of the regional commodity business, the building features raw industrial materials: masonry concrete, buffed concrete floor, glue-laminated posts and beams, and steel hardware.
• Polished cab components and insignia become a mechanical louver, door handles, and decorative furniture paneling.

SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES

Daylighting: Multiple windows and skylights reduce the need for electric lighting.
Finishes: Industrial surfaces eliminate finish materials, and add durability and longevity.
Storm Water Management: Stormwater runoff from the roof and paving is infiltrated on site via a vegetated swale.