House with Five Porches

Designed for aging in place graciously, House with Five Porches is a compact single family home sited so as to foster community and extend its possibilities. The house occupies the last unbuilt lot on a long-established street. The width of the property is much narrower that the others on the street, creating a situation where the new home will necessarily be smaller than its neighbors – a requirement that meshed with the owners’ desire for a compact, contemporary living space. The design uses a shingle siding pulled down to the ground as both a nod to the several shingle style homes in the neighborhood and as a visual device to make the house appear larger when viewed from the sidewalk.Informal window patterns on the sides of the house clearly denotes the house as contemporary, while the symmetries of the front elevation present a more formal face to the street. Gracious outdoor spaces including a double-height screened back porch, formal front porch, and a small upper level balcony that will afford views of the mountains work to expand the home’s livability.