SIPs House Portland

An update for the new year

darin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:01:10 +0000

With 2009 coming to a close we needed to decide what 2010 had in store for the SIPs house. With funds tightening (both our funds and funds available from banks), we decided to pull the house off the market and our financing partner is moving into it. I’ll follow with an update after they get a chance to settle in and get a feel for the house.

In the mean time, John Chilson from Builder News magazine put together a video of the house featuring Seed Architecture Studio principal Darin Dougherty. The video footage was taken a month or so prior to the final completion of the house.

A big thank you to everyone who participated in the project and happy 2010!

We’re done, we’re done!!

darin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:19:04 +0000

2ndbath 2ndbed bridge deck front kitchen kitchen1 kitchen2 kitchen3 mstrbath mstrbed perspective powder stair

Well, we’re finally done with the house. We Past our final inspection, but we’re still pending our LEED status. I thought it would be nice to post some recent images. Unfortunately, we had to pull the house off the market due to the state of the economy and the ability for our developing partner to carry the finances. Fortunately, the developing partner is moving into the house. It’ll be very exciting to have someone close to the project move into the house and ‘tune’ it the way it was meant to be tuned. Speaking of tuning, I was in the house taking the above images. I noticed it was warm and comfortable in the house in socks, jeans and a T-shirt. The thermostat was set to 60 degrees. Not bad considering the low 40 degree exterior temperature.

Fuez concrete counters

darin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:16:46 +0000

Again – low rez camera phone photos, but here are some progress shots of the Fuez concrete countertops. The kitchen counters are a gray color with clear glass. All the bathrooms are a clean white with clear glass. We’re pleased so far with our natural materials pallet of concrete, cork and bamboo – what do you think?

kitchen1 kitchen2 overhead vanity

BIG Tour!

darin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:28:43 +0000

We’re very pleased to announce the SIPs house will be featured in the Build it Green tour of homes this September. We were on the tour last year, but really only had the concrete slab poured and one wall installed. We’re excited to show off the finished product. See you on the tour – click here for tour information.

Keep it rolling

darin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:37:38 +0000

We’re about 2 weeks out from completion. I’ll work on getting some decent images loaded, but the house is a bit chaotic at the moment with all of the subs trimming everything out. In the mean time, here are a few images of another project we have in for permit. This project incorporates many of the sustainable measures we learned on the SIPs house. High five to Katie for the great renderings.

lower level main level section 1 section 2 section 3 twigg aerial 1 twigg aerial 2 twigg entry view twigg north side

Wrapping it up and Tweeting

darin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:38:28 +0000

Well, we’re finally coming to a close on the SIPs house. These week we’ll be buttoning up a lot of large items to prepare for the open house this sunday. Seed will be there later in the afternoon and we’ll be updating via Twitter. Follow us @seedarch. I’ll post some interior images of the house soon.

Social Networking!

darin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:05:18 +0000

I’ll admit. We’re a little behind the curve, but you can now follow Seed on Facebook – click the button below

A few updated siding photos

darin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:40:20 +0000

Here’s a few more photos of the exterior. We started installing flooring and tile this week so hard to get in the house to take photos, but I’ll post soon.

back corner front of house looking at roof deck

siding update

darin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:16:06 +0000

barn wood siding

barn wood and corten

more barn wood and corten

Just a quick update on the project. the siding is coming along nicely. Hank is doing a fantastic job piecing the barn boards in place…it’s sort of an art. The texture of the wood next to the steel is hard to capture correctly in a photograph, but it’s really turning out well. The interior of the house is really shaping up as well. In the interior, 99% of the painting has been completed. Tile install started today. We started to install some light fixtures, but the two linear pendants that hang over the kitchen islands are the wrong fixtures. Our lighting supplier worked hard today to come up with a suitable solution so we’ll get the fixtures replaced very soon. In the next couple weeks, we have flooring, cabinets and electrical and plumbing trim out. Exterior patio, entry porch and landscaping will also be taking place. We’re working on scheduling an open house…when I have the exact dates, I’ll post them in here.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?

darin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:38:58 +0000

more barn wood

Turns out a lot if he or she could. We realized fairly early on in the wood siding process we weren’t going to have enough barn wood to do what we needed to do. Luckily, here in the Pacific Northwest we have a fair amount old barns laying around, so we picked up another one. This should do the trick. Thank you Craig’s list.

While this is a relief, we were struck a blow from the LEED rating system this week. Turns out the wood paneling we put on the entry of the house will need to be removed and replaced. This is unfortunate as it’s a waste of time and resources. When we found the plywood, we were told it is ‘domestic’ mahogany. We thought all mahogany was considered tropical, but the salesman was sure it was domestic so we jumped at the deal. After further investigation, we found the wood may be produced domestically, but the veneer on the face is actually Meranti coming from trees considered ‘tropical’ by LEED standards. LEED considers any wood grown between the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn as tropical. LEED does allow tropical wood to be used as long as it is FCS certified, but we decided early on to try to avoid tropical wood all together.

time for wood!

darin — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:40:46 +0000

reclaimed barn wood

We finally started putting up wood siding this week. The image doesn’t really do justice. There’s a fair amount of depth and texture that will be great next to the smooth texture of the corten. We’re installing the wood with small head stainless steel screws over Drain Plane furring strips.

The interior just got it’s second coat of primer today as well, so we’ll be painting in the next day or two.

Lets get our paint on!

darin — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:17:36 +0000

Firstly – I apologize for the low rez camera phone photos…didn’t have my camera handy. Running parallel with our SIPs house, we’ve been working on another house (the 14 house) on the other side of town built entirely out of ICF. The house has absolutely no wood framing. The exterior walls are ICF and light gauge framing. The sub-floors are metal pan deck with hydronic radiant concrete floors. Even the roof is a 2″ concrete slab. It’s been interesting to have both non-conventional framed buildings going on at the same time. Both of them are a first for us, which means they’ve gone a little slower than typical wood framed buildings. Both require a certain level of staging in order to get the materials on site, and erect them…it’s a bit of an art form really.

This week we are wrapping up drywall at the sips house. Paint will happen next week. You can see in the photo below the aluminum channel that will hold the sheets of glass along the bridge to the roof deck (it’s sitting on the floor). It’s a bit heavy, so we have a lift that will help us install it.

Lastly – a photo of the stair tower. Might be a great place for a piece of art.

Let there be wood.

darin — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:43:50 +0000

For the entry to the house, we finally decided on a plywood panel. There were several considerations for this. Firstly, while the corten is cool looking, it’s not a ‘warm’ material to have next to an entry. We typically like to provide softer materials in areas that you’re more likely to physically touch. Another is price and function. Because of the detailing of corten panels, we had to settle on a material 1/4″ thick or less. We did our best to find something green, readily available and cost effective which was difficult. We settled on marine grade mahogany plywood. On the plus side, it was priced right and because it’s marine grade, it’ll last for decades. It’s all undercover and completely sealed on all sides with a clear marine grade sealer. We think Hank did a great job installing the panels.

I’ve also attached a photo of the atrium windows with some fresh drywall.

drywall wood1 wood2

carbon footprint…

darin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:03:06 +0000

We’re installing drywall at the moment at the SIPs house…so not a lot for us to do at the moment. We’ve moved outside and are focusing on some boring stuff like hooking up utilities. The last few days here in Portland have been beautiful…sunny and in the 70’s. As is usually the case this time of year, the bike commuters multiply in numbers. I try to keep my carbon footprint low by biking as much as possible…thought I’d share a photo of my daily ride.

a little overzealous

darin — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:02:02 +0000

We had our first LEED inspection today. It was a bit less exciting than I had imagined it to be. I supposed I imagined a team of people with fancy equipment probing the house, but that wasn’t the case. Just a couple guys and clipboards. They have a standard punch list of items they went through. They’ll get back to us with their results.

Before the LEED inspection, we had to finish insulating and sealing the house. The only two areas that have traditional insulation is the floor of the second bedroom / ceiling of the covered patio, and the interior wall of the exterior building storage room (our replacement for the traditional garage). we filled the joist cavities under the bedroom with 3″ of closed cell foam at approximately R-18 plus R-30 worth of recycled denimum batts for a total of R-48. For the interior wall, we went with one pass of spray foam just to seal things up, then blow in cellulose (recycled newsprint and phone books. Now that the house is sealed, it is completely quite and warmer in the house. Even without a heat source yet.

We also had a blower door test done. This is not part of our LEED process – they provide one at the end of the project. This one was provided by Building America. We scored a 2 ACH (air changes per hour) under 50 pascels of pressure. The typical house in the pacific northwest is about 5.6 ACH. This is very good for us considering the drywall isn’t installed and some of the exterior doors don’t have their gaskets

Our structural engineer stopped by during the inspection to help us figure out our glass railing detail. See the photo of his handywork drawn on a wall. Some times, this hands on in the moment approach is the most efficient way to solve problems.

Structural Engineer's sketch of glass railing detail