As the days slowly get longer again, it is a good time to take a look back and see what we got up to this past year. This year has been filled with great clients and collaborators and we have been privileged to work with outstanding people throughout the year. To all of those who trusted us with their homes, businesses and institutions and to all of those who worked with us to bring these great projects to life : Thank you!

So what have we been up to? Glad you asked.

In July 2019, new legislation was signed into law making it easier to build detached and attached accessory dwelling units in Seattle. Lets review some of those changes and what they mean if you are looking at building a backyard cottage.

We believe in the transformative power of design. We have seen firsthand the effect that a well-designed project or an inclusive process can have on a community. Many communities living in poverty have concluded that agency and beauty are only available to the wealthy and powerful. We believe that everyone has the right to a voice in their community and that everyone deserves beauty in their lives. Beyond it being a simple matter of justice, assisting a marginalized community to create something that is not only useful but beautiful is a way to increase capacity and self-sufficiency.

Public buildings are physical manifestations of what Eric Klinenberg calls social infrastructure. Klinenberg defines social infrastructure as “the physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact”.  As opposed to physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water pipes etc., social infrastructure is the spaces and places that allow for people to come together and create a community. Of all the public buildings that comprise our social infrastructure, libraries are perhaps the best current example of social infrastructure in our society.

Seattle is in the middle of a long running debate on DADUs. For those who are not up on your land use acronyms, DADU stands for ‘detached accessory dwelling unit’, often called backyard cottages, granny flats or in some cases, alley flats. While we think the benefits of DADUs are self-evident, not everyone agrees with us.

Note: Since we originally put this together, the market in Seattle has only continued to get more competitive and prices are reflecting that. We have updated some of our base cost assumptions below to reflect what we are seeing in the office at the moment. 

Your home is the most important building in your life. It is your refuge from the world. The place where you spend the majority of your time and one of the few places where you have full control over your environment. Shaping your home is major undertaking and we approach it with respect, eagerness and joy.

After the phased development thinking, we believed it would be interesting to speculate on how the village might grow. With the Agros land development model, land is purchased and living space is set aside with the assumption that everyone in the village will be farming. At some point further into the future, there will be enough density and chance happenings to combine together for other occupations to develop. How might that growth look? What direction might the community decide is best for their long term development? And more importantly, is there anything that we should think abou

From Option A, we continued to develop and refine the design using more precise dimensioning and site data.  The village is split into two areas because the community preferred to have larger lots per house (Option A) instead of keeping all the lots clustered into one area (Option B).  In the site analysis, we saw that the steep slopes and agriculture infrastructure restricted the layout growth in Area A.  In response we placed the additional lots along the existing road to the west, creating Area B.   Don’t worry though—it’s only a five minute walk between the two areas.