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Benjamin Benschneider
Living room at the Madrona house, Seattle.
Residential
Madrona Live / Work, Seattle
Architectural Interiors | Merit Award
1 MIN READ
Polished, compact, gracious: the redesign of this 100-year-old Seattle storefront offers some original ideas for urban living. Architect Tyler Engle centered the living and dining areas under a 12-foot-9-inch-by-9-foot skylight, creating the modern equivalent of the traditional courtyard house. “We tried to create a room to the sky, since things are fairly gray in Seattle,” Engle says. “As the sun passes, the light and mood change.”
An ipe-clad service core containing the kitchen and a powder room separates the “courtyard” from the glassy front of the house, which is fitted out with a foyer and a small office for one member of the couple, and can be closed off from the service core with pocket doors. At the back of the house is another office and a master suite, whose clerestory borrows the courtyard light. Materials and detailing underscore the urban nature of this live/work space: Radiant-heated concrete floors have a terrazzolike finish, and thin, blackened steel “blinders” bookend the kitchen, separating it visually from the pass-throughs on either side. The jury was impressed, praising the “clear diagram and efficient, light-filled floor plan.”
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