Merit Award
The empty nester clients had a straightforward request for architect Mark McInturff: an easily accessible outdoor space. But coming up with a straightforward solution was a more complicated proposition. The couple’s house sits on a hilly, heavily wooded corner lot with no clearly defined boundaries. All access to outdoor spaces required going up or down stairs, and while the recently retired couple could manage it, they rarely made the effort.
McInturff proposed a screened porch on stilts that would give the owners level access from their family room and provide less strenuous routes to existing outdoor spaces via wooden bridges extending from each side. Elevating the screened porch also would provide treetop views and require less intrusive construction on the verdant hillside. The architect felt that big timbers would overwhelm the 550-square-foot addition, so he speced steel supports to lift the structure off the ground.
A delicate web of 2x4s braces the porch’s gabled roof. The peaked roof is topped by a long custom skylight that lets shadows and light filter through surrounding branches and dance into the space. Construction supervisor Robert Belliveau says the network of small pieces took time to assemble. “All of the wood had to be kiln dried so it wouldn’t twist and bend due to weather changes, and everything had to fit together correctly,” says Belliveau.
A glassed-in room connects the porch to the house and is mirrored in size by an alcove at the porch’s opposite end. The room serves as a transition space from fully protected interiors through this transparent connection to the exposed porch. The connector’s flat roof also lets natural light into the home’s interior. “We wanted to continue the gable of the main house,” explains McInturff, “but a gable up next to the house meant losing all of the windows on that end.”
Our jury admired the porch’s graceful lines and honest expression of structure. “Gorgeous and refined,” they said. McInturff calls the porch an “exercise in delicate carpentry.” And the homeowners think of it as their little summer house.
Entrant/Architect: McInturff Architects, Bethesda, Md.; Builder: Renovations Unlimited, Washington, D.C.; Construction supervisor: Robert Belliveau, Clifton, Va.; Project size: 550 square feet; Construction cost: Withheld; Photographer: Julia Heine; Illustrator: Harry Whitver.
