One to Grow On
Architect Emory Baldwin’s Greenlake home puts his simple—yet revolutionary—design philosophy to the test.
Such forward-looking innovations are quintessential universal design, an architectural school of thought based around modifiable, multipurpose floor plans flexible enough to fit all ages, abilities, and household types. Baldwin had his first brush with it while studying abroad in Sydney, Australia, in 1991, when he worked on a vacation home for a family with a wheelchair-bound daughter. His classmates whinged that the project was creatively stifling, but Baldwin had found his purpose. “There are so many good designers out there, and they can all design a really nice house. But if there’s not some bigger reason to it, what’s the point?” he says. After school he began a career creating housing for seniors; most recently he and two colleagues—bent on bringing universal design to the Emerald City—started Zai, a design firm specializing in transformable homes.
The Greenlake house serves as a sort of life-size model, showing clients and design colleagues that accessible building doesn’t have to be about clunky handrails and hospital-style ramps. Its central hub is a dramatically sloped, double-height open space with seven-foot-tall windows that let in such a steady stream of natural light, electric bulbs are often unnecessary—even on the grayest Seattle days. When he built the house Baldwin incorporated beams engineered to support the load of a second floor: If it ever needed to accommodate a larger family, the space can be converted into two levels in only three weeks, and wouldn’t require redesign or reengineering, just an over-the-counter construction permit (which is granted on the spot, versus a full permit review that takes up to five weeks). Without the beams, the restructuring, construction, and permit review combined could take at least four and half months.
“To me, if you design right from the beginning, you’re reducing the amount of remodeling in the future, so it eliminates a big amount of waste and money,” says Baldwin. Of course, less waste means universal homes are often greener as well. “So much of sustainability these days is about product. If you use all the product you want, but if you don’t design it right, then you’re still going to tear it out, you’re still wasting it,” he says, treading lightly on thinly striated wood planking, a material made from leftover construction beam scraps.
Baldwin moves into the kitchen where a chalkboard backsplash—repurposed rubble from a local high school—runs along the kitchen wall. The words “Congratulations Zack” are still chalked on it, a remnant from a nephew’s recent graduation party. No doubt as the Baldwin family ages, the trim will celebrate all sorts of milestones—birthdays, births, retirements. And one day Baldwin’s daughters—who are forever jumping up on the counters to doodle on it—might have children who do just the same.
Published: March 2009
