This home, currently on the boards, is designed for a flat site in the Town of Arena in Iowa County Wisconsin.  My clients came to me with the idea of building an A-frame house on their rural site.  However, we quickly came to the conclusion that the tight space constraints of an A-frame would not meet their requirements.  A-frames, with their steeply pitched roofs which double as the walls of the house, are big on ceiling height but small on floor area.  

​Instead we opted for a design with a 1-1/2 story great room, with the remainder of the house being 2 stories in order to create adequate space for four bedrooms, 2-1/2 baths, a large walk-in pantry, loft, mud room and laundry.

The front and sides of the home utilize standard sized windows, saving the drama for the great room window wall which overlooks the forested south end of the property.  Exterior materials include black metal vertical siding, black standing seam roofs and black windows, with stained wood entry door, overhead doors and screen porch framing providing warm accents.

In addition to the interior conditioned space, there is a screen porch for enjoying the summer months bug-free, and a patio which wraps around two sides of the great room.

In recent years, I've had many clients who have steep rural sites that they would like to build on.  In a previous blog post called Driveways for Steep Sites, I wrote about the challenges of putting a functional driveway on a steep side.  This post will talk more about the house itself, specifically houses built on the side of a steep hill.

What is meant by a steep site?  Although the definition can vary, I'm referring to a site with a grade of 20% or more.  

​The following recommendations are based on what is most natural and therefore most affordable to build, not on what CAN be built.  Most things are possible to build with enough money. 

GARAGE LOCATION
First of all, let's consider the garage.  If the site is uphill from the public road, then it makes sense to put the garage on the lowest level of the house (what would be considered a walkout basement) because it will be easier to get a driveway to that level.  This will reduce the length of the driveway and the amount of grade that it has to climb.  This can work well if you plan to have the main living spaces (e.g. the family room, kitchen, dining room, etc.) in the walkout basement level of the house.  In homes where the living spaces are on the level above the garage, owners may want to plan for a future elevator in case they have difficulty walking up stairs as they age.

If the site is downhill from the public road, then it makes sense to put the garage on the uphill side of the house, again in order to reduce the length of the driveway and the grade change.  I find this to be a more desirable situation, since most people prefer to put the main living spaces completely aboveground, and there will likely be better views from this level as well.

LEVELS AND ORIENTATION
It naturally makes sense to have a walkout basement if one is building on a steep hill, since the downhill side of the house will be exposed. This can be especially beneficial if the hill faces south, as both levels will get southern exposure and heat from the sun in the winter.

When building on the side of a hill, it makes sense to keep the home rather narrow in the steep direction and orient the long faces parallel to the contours of the slope.  This minimizes the change in grade around the perimeter of the house and therefore the need for retaining walls.  Retaining walls can be a beautiful way to integrate a home into its site, but homeowners should be aware that they will be an added expense that won't be included in the cost to build the house itself.

Another option is to have multiple levels which step down the hill to follow the grade, but that strategy will increase the amount of foundation and roof area, therefore increasing the cost of the house.  Multiple levels can also be difficult to design without the roofs of the lower levels blocking the views from the upper levels, unless flat roofs (maybe with rooftop terraces incorporated into them!) are used.  

The least natural option is to build a house which runs perpendicular to the hill's contours and will require either that the home be pushed back into the hill or that retaining walls be used to hold the ground up around the foundation walls.

OUTDOOR SPACES
Patios or other outdoor spaces that sit directly on the ground work best when they are next to the house (with a retaining wall to hold up the ground) or behind it on the uphill side of the home.  Decks can, of course, be used to create outdoor spaces on the downhill side of the house but will shade the areas below them and may look awkwardly proportioned if they sit too far above the grade.

GRADING, STRUCTURE AND RETAINING WALLS
It's important that the ground on all sides of a house is sloped away from the house so that rainwater isn't directed into the house.  On the uphill side of the home, that often requires retaining walls to hold the dirt back away from the house.  Steeper hills will require more and/or higher retaining walls than less steep hills.

Structurally, the foundation of a home built on a steep hill may require additional reinforcing and concrete to resist the weight of the ground pushing against the uphill side of the house or may require special foundations.  The higher and longer the wall which is underground, the greater the force upon the wall, wanting to tilt it over.

EXCAVATION AND CONSTRUCTION COSTS
Finally, construction itself may be more expensive on a steep site.  It is more difficult to move equipment around a steep site, to bring materials up or down the hill and to construct the home when there is no flat area to work on.  The general contractor may even have to rent special equipment.


Steep sites can certainly be used to build a new home, but the owner of such a property should be aware of the special challenges and additional costs that will likely come with developing that site.  Tailoring the design of the home to work WITH the grade rather than against it will help to reduce those costs to some extent.

My family and I took a week-long trip to Arizona this month, one which had originally been planned to happen in 2020 but was delayed because of COVID.  One of our top priorities was to take our sons to Taliesin West, to expand their knowledge of Frank Lloyd Wright and to show them where we spent several winters as fellowship members at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. As it happened, the delay was fortunate because we were able to visit Taliesin West during an exhibit of the glass work of Dale Chihuly, an exhibit called "Chihuly in the Desert".  

Dale Chihuly is an internationally known glassblower who studied at the University of Wisconsin, in the nation's first glass program.  It was a special treat to see both the Taliesin West campus and Chihuly's work.  We came back again in the evening to see the glass pieces lit up against the desert sky.

Chihuly in the Desert runs through June 19.

​

This is a project that's currently in the design phase.  My clients, who live in the suburbs of Chicago, own a farmhouse in Richland County Wisconsin and plan to retire there in the future.  The farmhouse has a small kitchen and entry porch which were added onto the original house at some point, as well as a cramped (8' x 10') bedroom on the first floor.  My clients want to remove the kitchen / porch addition and replace it with a new kitchen, mud room, laundry room and owner's bedroom suite on the first floor, and a sewing room / family room / guest bedroom on the second floor.  They came to me with a design concept that had been sketched out by Steve Christianson, a retired builder whom they know.  I took his sketches, developed the design concept, modeled it in 3D and am currently working on the construction drawings.

The photograph below shows the current kitchen.

The addition consists of two parts.   A one story mass on the south contains the entry porch, mudroom and kitchen with vaulted ceiling.  The two-story mass on the north contains the owner suite and laundry room on the main level and a sewing room / family room / guest bedroom on the upper level.

The addition will be distinguished by board and batten siding to contrast with the lap siding on the existing house.  The second story gable on the east side will be sided in shakes and a broad band of rake trim to mimic the details on the existing house.  Large windows on the north side of the addition take in the long distance views in that direction.

When COVID-19 first appeared in the United States in early 2020, I assumed that it would be gone in a few months.  I never suspected that two years later, we would still be dealing with it and its ramifications for the building industry.

In March of 2020. when businesses were shutting down in the area, I received calls from two of my clients saying that they were putting their projects on hold, at least for the time being, due to the financial uncertainties caused by COVID.  I worried that business was going to dry up.  However, it wasn't long after that that I started seeing a surge in calls and emails from prospective clients who wanted to do remodels or additions, or build new homes.

For a variety of reasons, the residential building sector has been booming for much of the last couple of years.  I think that there are a few reasons for this:

• As adults have worked from home and children have been learning remotely, families have felt the need for more space.
• More time at home has led people to see things that they would like to change about their homes.
• New home construction has not kept up with demand.  During the Great Recession, some builders went out of business, never to return.  There has also been less interest among young people in working in construction, leading to a shortage of labor to replace builders and subcontractors as they retire.  In some areas, zoning laws and NIMBYism have reduced the supply of available land to build upon.   In the last couple of years, material shortages, delays and higher costs have slowed down the building process or caused people to put off construction of their projects until availability and prices settle down.
• The lack of existing housing related to demand has caused existing home prices to rise, at the same time that there is heavy competition for the few houses that are for sale.  Some people are giving up on finding a different home to buy and are instead choosing to change their existing home to better meet their needs.

The increased interest in home building and remodeling continues to this day, at the same time that it's harder to build because of the longer delays and higher costs of some materials.  Material costs have come down from their pandemic high but are still higher than they were pre-COVID.  There are still long delays for some materials, making it necessary to order some products much earlier than before.

I'm hopeful that material prices and availability will eventually settle back down to something close to "normal".  In the meantime, it's wise to start planning a building project well ahead of time, as architects and home builders are getting booked up farther into the future than before. 

​This home is the second one I've designed which utilizes double stud wall construction and the third I've designed which was built by Driftless Homewrights of Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin.  Construction was completed last fall.  

​Built using double stud wall construction, a super-insulated roof, and solar panels, this home not only achieved Net Zero Energy status, but actually generated more energy than it used during its first 8 months of occupancy.  The 3-bedroom, 2-bath home has vaulted ceilings, a loft space and many custom features such as built-in seats and bookshelves framing the windows in the southeast corner of the family room.  

​Unfortunately, the drama of the 1-1/2 story vaulted ceiling is difficult to capture with a camera.

I recently returned from a trip to New York City, where Broadway is slowly reopening and tourists are gradually returning.  I saw quite a few changes from the last time I was in New York, some due to COVID and others to  the continuous construction activity in the city.

For one thing, many streets had been blocked off and furnished with tables and chairs to facilitate social distancing.  It was quite nice to have all of these additional pedestrian-oriented spaces for socially-distanced people watching and expanded walking space.

Another new development due to COVID is the many outdoor dining sheds which have popped up on the street in front of restaurants throughout New York.  These create a semi-outdoor space for eating as well as making up for some of the space lost to socially-distanced dining inside of restaurants.  They provide a nice outdoor dining option, although they also eat up parking spots on the street, which people with cars probably don't appreciate.

This spring a brand new park opened on the west side of the city.  Called "Little Island", it is made up of 132 concrete "tulip pots", which spring up out of the Hudson River and support landscaping, pathways and an amphitheater above.  I'd seen this park mentioned in architectural magazines, and I wanted to check out its unique structure.  Although visiting the park is free, it requires timed entry reservations on the weekend, so apparently the park is quite popular.

The High Line may be my favorite park in New York, and it was completed since I was last there.  The High Line was built on abandoned elevated railroad tracks that run along the west side of Chelsea.  It creates a 1-1/2 mile long elevated "promenade", a place to see and be seen, a place to enjoy views of the city without the presence of traffic.  The view changes along the park, from wide open spaces, to secluded little pockets of nature, to canyons created by the tall buildings along the path.  Although no two stretches of the park are alike, they are all tied together by the use of landscaping, the incorporation of the old train rails into the paving and the use of concrete, metal and wood for the many benches along the way.

Just north of the north end of the High Line is the "Vessel", a 16-story visitor attraction with a honeycomb-like structure that contains 154 flights of stairs and 80 landings for visitors to climb

This was a fun project that was constructed earlier in the year.  It is the first carport that I've designed.  My client wanted a carport to blend in aesthetically with the home, just like the existing pool house and shed do.  The shape of the roofs, materials and colors all reference the other buildings on the site.  

The carport was built under the existing trees, and beautiful new landscaping connects it to the site as well.  Downlighting built into the ceiling of the carport is wired to a motion sensor which turns the lights on when the car approaches the carport or when the owner walks out of the front door of the house.  Rather than pour a concrete slab, my client opted for a gravel floor, in order to keep the feeling casual.  When there's no vehicle parked there, the carport can be used as a covered outdoor space.

This recent project illustrates a remarkable transformation that occurred when my clients decided to upgrade their recently purchased lakefront home overlooking Lake Wisconsin near Lodi.  Previous owners of the home clearly had some interesting ideas about how to make it unique, but when my clients purchased the home in 2019, it was woefully in need of an update.

The home consisted of a small cabin with a full basement and a later addition which stepped up the hill and had no basement below it.  The family room and main level bedroom had windows overlooking the lake, while the kitchen and dining area were in the newer part of the home, facing the street.  This project involved a total gut job on the inside, and the entire front part of the house ended up being replaced when it was discovered to be sagging.

The new design flips the kitchen and downstairs bedroom so that the kitchen and family room flow together as one space, with two large patio doors onto the enlarged lakeside deck.  The stair to the basement was relocated so that a laundry room and powder room could take its place at the front of the house, making more efficient use of the space.

On the second floor, part of an upstairs balcony overlooking the lake was enclosed to create more interior space for the bathroom and three bedrooms, two of which have doors onto the balcony.

The exterior of the home was dramatically changed when the street-facing balcony was replaced with a steeper roof and the T-11 siding was replaced with engineered siding.  The second story low-slope roof was also replaced with a steeper roof.  The front facade was given taller windows, a more attractive entry door and larger entry roof.  From the outside, the original home is barely recognizable due to the altered rooflines, windows and deck.

Many of the new homes that I design are built on properties that were previously farm fields or wooded hillsides and are being inhabited for the first time.  However, one of my current projects, located near Belleville, is being built on an old Amish farmstead.  At one time there was a farm house, barn, other outbuildings, a well and a septic system on the property, most of which had been torn down.  Although the parcel consists of 4 acres, much of the site is steep, and the homeowners wanted to build as close to the location of the original farm house as possible, where the land is flatter and there are beautiful views of an adjacent wetland.

Nature had overgrown the area where the previous house was located, making it hard to see exactly what we were dealing with, but we knew that there was a pit which may have been the location of the previous basement, and an adjacent pile of rubble, as well as miscellaneous debris scattered around. Once the excavator got to work digging the foundation, it became clearer where the soil was undisturbed and where debris was sitting on or below the topsoil.  One discovery was what appeared to be an old cistern, (see photo below).  This had to be dug out until the excavator got down to undisturbed ground (see second photo below). 

Another area of concern was the location of the future garage, where a layer of loose rock beneath the upper  layer of soil pointed to a potential area of settlement.  This area was also excavated and replaced with compacted rock.

Foundations need to be built upon undisturbed soil, or the disturbed soil has to be removed and replaced with adequately compacted rock.  Soil that has been disturbed can settle over time, resulting in settling of a home's foundations and damage to the home.  

​For this project, I recommended bringing in a geotechnical engineer to assess the site and oversee preparation of the previous homestead for new construction.  ​Many potential property owners may not be aware that there are additional concerns and costs involved in building on a site that has been previously built upon or where the natural topography has been otherwise altered.  This often includes costs to haul away dirt and debris, for additional excavation and for bringing in and compacting clean rock to create a suitable surface to build upon.  

On some properties, there may be existing buildings which will be removed, or there may be evidence of former buildings.  it may be possible to learn about previous development of a site by looking at historic aerial photos.  In other cases, the owner may not know of previous development until excavation starts.  The excavation phase of a project is usually the most unpredictable stage of construction because it is unknown whether there exists underground rock, unsuitable soil, buried debris or high groundwater.  That's why it's good to include a contingency in the construction budget for surprises that may be discovered during excavation.  General contractors may include a line in their construction agreement stating what the additional cost will be if rock has to be blasted or if additional gravel has to be brought in to replace disturbed soil.