This house for a young family was designed for a site at the center of a city block.
The adjacencies were inconvenient visually and acoustically: neighboring back-yards on 3 sides and a commercial parking lot on the fourth. Stables and garages had previously occupied the lot, some of them built on the property line. The remains of their walls, built of stone, brick and concrete block, define the extent of the garden to the North and East.
Cross-laminated timber (CLT) was chosen for for a number of reasons, including its ecological credentials and strong architectonic presence.
In order to maximize access to sun, air, and the outdoors, living spaces were planned around a center courtyard. Parts of the masonry structures were absorbed into the structure of the house. The kitchen and main living room shared some common features: both were oriented towards a walled garden, linked to it and each other by a 3-season outdoor room.
See also CLT House, v.2
LDCP 