Our roof garden expert planted starts of all kinds of greens 3 weeks ago and it looks like we can average a salad a day for 4-6 people. How satisfying!

But everything is growing.  And this reminds me to sound a general alarm out to check around the perimeter of your house for inappropriate plant – to – house contact.   When shrubs, trees, even weeds and tall grass rub against your house, they create a great path for bugs.  Even more, you want your old house to be able to get good sun exposure to dry it out.  If you have deciduous vines used for seasonal shading, you need to watch that they don’t be come super highways for insect infestation.  A good layer of Tanglefoot above the base of the vine will do the trick.  Re-apply as necessary.

Trim the trees so they don’t hang over the roof, which can encourage moss growth, especially on the north side.  And check to make sure there’s no dirt/wood contact around the house while you’re at it.  (unless the wood is of a type that’s approved for this)

Enjoy the spring, eat a salad!  More on roof gardens and green roofs later…

– Sam

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Bureau of Planning and Sustainability a little mini-tour of some select Hammer & Hand projects.  These projects are in the running for this September’s Build It Green Tour, and Mike is charged with narrowing down the 40 applications to a final list of 20 for the tour.  Mike (right) and Hammer & Hand’s Sam Hagerman are pictured here with architect Michelle Jeresek, discussing the tour.

Call us biased, but we think all 4 of our submitted buildings merit a spot on the tour… each project is compact, urban and features green building technologies like on-demand water heaters, radiant hydronic heating, dual flush toilets, low-flow fixtures, rainwater harvesting, and salvaged, non-toxic, recycled and locally-sourced materials.  All of this is right in line with our longstanding environmental ethos.

The first building we toured is a duplex project in northeast Portland (portfolio gallery of pics) that’s a great example of compact urban living.  Michelle at Departure Design worked with the owners to design a renovation that matches contemporary design with existing details and materials. Hammer & Hand executed those designs, preserving old details, matching trim (Sam is pictured here point to new trim next to old), repurposing materials, and making it all work.  Mike, clearly a building geek like the rest of us, was particularly intrigued/impressed by the owners’ vision in successfully repurposing what was once a marginal property.

Next we visited a musician’s dwelling in Southeast (portfolio gallery of pics) that features an open studio for music, painting and videography.  The building’s particularly cool because it features salvaged fir siding from a barn at the Oregon State Mental Hospital, site of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.  The combination of natural, irregular materials with crisp modernist design really works and results in a compelling, livable space.  The owner’s dogs enjoyed Sam’s company…

Our next stop was an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) garage conversion located nearby.  Sam showed off Hammer & Hand’s custom (and ingenious, if we may!) sliding door arrangement that provides a cost-effective and water-tight solution to creating living space while maintaining garage function, if desired.  Flexibility was the word of the day, and the small-but-spacious unit features a sleeping loft accessible by a ladder-stair.  The balusters for the loft were built from wine barrel staves for the wine enthusiast owners.  Pretty groovy.

After a quick juice stop at New Seasons in Seven Corners, we visited our duplex rental transformation project in Southeast. One corner of the building is wrapped in a sculpture of salvaged wood arranged in a horizontal pattern, pictured here.  The bottom unit is fully accessible and the building as a whole incorporates passive solar features, solar tubes and a host of other green technologies.  We enjoyed talking with a fiercely loyal tenant about why he never wants to give the place up É it’s hip, comfortable, green and affordable.

It was great to geek out with Mike and get reacquainted with these four cool projects.  Now we’re crossing our fingers that we’ll be able to share the projects with the community on the 2010 Build It Green Tour.  We’ll keep you posted!

– Zack

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The event highlights notable homes exemplifying five distinct architectural styles in Portland, from Victorian to Northwest Modern.

We first learned about the Tour thanks to our work on the Harry A. Green Estate, one of the six homes featured.  Barbara Pierce of AHC knew of our historically-accurate window restoration on portions of the estate a few years back, and, given that connection, thought we might like to sponsor the tour.  (Photos here show the Harry A. Green Estate, blueprints, and window restoration work.)

Now given the breadth of our work, we wear several interrelated but separate hats.  So with our historic restoration hat on, sponsorship of the tour made sense.  But how about when we’re wearing our Portland remodel contractor hat?  How is a tour like this relevant to a builder that repurposes homes to the needs of today’s home dwellers?  After all, while we honor traditions past, we also embrace change and innovation when it makes sense for our clients.  We don’t always work wearing archivist’s gloves.

Here are 4 reasons that we’re sponsoring the tour:

1. Shaping Portland’s built heritage.   The tour celebrates our city’s architectural and built heritage.  As Portland remodelers, we engage with that heritage every day and, in fact, become part of it as we shape and mold the built environment.  Kind of sobering, actually.  So let’s pay homage to the history and traditions that have created the city that we are reshaping today.
2. Innovation doesn’t occur in a vacuum.  Contemporary artists study the classics.  Jazz innovators immerse themselves in Coltrane.  Why?  Context matters and innovation is informed by tradition.  As builders and artists we embrace that duality.  We love the traditional and the modern, Arts and Crafts and Northwest Style.  Any chance to see exemplars of either is something we don’t like to miss.
3. Modernism as a blueprint.  The tour features two modernist homes, one from the mid-century and another Pietro Belluschi home from the 80s.  While decades old, the modernist principles of design simplicity and focus on function are powerful guides for remodel work and building innovations today.
4. A worthy organization and mission.  With a mission “to preserve the historic character and livability of our built environment, and to promote sustainability through the re-use of period homes and buildings”, Architectural Heritage Center deserves the support of Portland’s remodeling community.

As of this writing, tickets for the tour are still available from AHC.  We hope to see you there!

– Zack

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The Living Building Challenge standard requires, among other things, that buildings generate all of their own energy from renewable sources and capture and treat all storm and waste water.  It’s not an easy standard to meet – while 70 projects are currently seeking certification, none has yet achieved it.

As the DJC article, describes, Dustin and Garrett Moon are well on their way to meeting the energy and water requirements of the standard, with lots of guidance and lessons learned from Passive House.  Kudos!

photo credit: Dan Carter/DJC

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The Daily Journal of Commerce reported today that the Portland City Council voted to partner with the Oregon University System to fund the schematic design process for the PSU-based Oregon Sustainability Center.  The design will be completed at the beginning of 2011, at which time the City will consider supporting actual construction of the center.

Oregon Public Broadcasting also reported on the story today, emphasizing the center’s potential role as a replicable model of Living Building Challenge standards, the comprehensive set of green building goals whose energy efficiency standards are closely related to Passive House.  Given the potential impact on the future of the City’s green building community, we’re watching the story closely.

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As a Portland remodeler and home builder we were proud to sponsor the event.

Having performed some historically-accurate window restoration on the Harry Green House, we were particularly interested in seeing that home from the inside again.  Designed by Herman Brookman in 1927, the home is an exemplar of historic revival design, with strong Mediterranean and Middle Eastern gestures.

Unfortunately, the house is in pretty rough shape, which was hard to see.  Here’s the sunroom and fountain:

Even in its present state though, the home is pretty fantastic, with fanciful details hiding around every corner, a sweeping ballroom, elaborate tile work and wood flooring, beautiful leaded glass windows, and some really crazy bathrooms.  Its current disrepair highlights the importance of groups like AHC and their efforts to raise awareness and preserve architectural treasures in the city.  We’re hoping that the home receives some serious tender loving care soon.  The exposure from the tour can only help.

Other tour highlights:

• the story of the discovery of hidden jewelry in a wall during the renovation of the 1910 Craftsman on NW Lovejoy.
• the 1980 Modernist jewel designed by Pietro Belluschi on Old Germantown Road, with landscape designed by architect/owner Michael McCulloch (photos below).
• the Art Room at the 1912 Arts & Crafts home on Mt. Tabor, designed by Ellis F. Lawrence (photo below).
• The museum-like 1884 Victorian on Vista … seriously felt like stepping back in time.

Thanks go to AHC for their good work.

-Zack

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Brian has become one of the best sources around for writing, thinking and critique about our city’s built environment.  If you haven’t read his work, please do check it out.  Meanwhile, stay tuned for our future collaborations with Portland Architecture!

-Zack

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WalkScore.com provides a nice online tool to measure your home’s “Walk Score”, a combination of walkability, proximity to neighborhood amenities, and access to transit.  Just enter your address and see where the walkability chips fall.

Portland has the tenth highest Walk Score among US cities.  Interestingly, Los Angeles is #9, showing that despite its car-orientation, the City does boast some very walkable neighborhoods.  I guess it challenges some of my Portland chauvinism … (no, maybe not.)

-Zack

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And not just the conventional model in which a builder subsumes the architect’s responsibilities or vice versa.  Also the more holistic form that facilitates and fosters participation by all three “legs” of the project development “stool”: the designer, builder and client, as individually-empowered stakeholders advocating for project success.  (We’ve blogged here before about this model of design-build.)

Deep collaboration is important at every step of any green building project, from schematic design, to design development to actual construction.  Why?  Because the creation of a sustainable home involves a complex web of interconnected systems.  Diverse perspectives and expertise are necessary to navigate this ecosystem, mitigating tradeoffs and maximizing synergies.

This kind of design-build collaboration isn’t always easy, but the hard-won solutions produced by it form the bedrock for green building innovation.  Build It Green! features 21 examples along a broad continuum of this innovation, 2 built by Hammer and Hand and 19 others built by our peers, including:

• the joint efforts of young architect and experienced remodeler to create the CoreHaus Passive House;
• the Wilson Renovation’s client-driven partnership with an independent builder to achieve near-zero energy for a 1950s ranch house;
• the husband and wife collaboration to plan, design and build the Rubado Redux bungalow restoration.

-Zack

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What started out as a modest 960-square-foot house with subtle late-Victorian styling is reborn this month as our 2800 square-foot Sellwood home with all the amenities of modern family living and a generous nod to its architectural heritage.  (See image portfolio of finished project here.)

The Sellwood neighborhood saw a boom in building in 1905 with the development of the trolley system connected to downtown Portland – this house was a product of that boom, originally built in 1905 adjacent to the historic Shannon House, which traces its origins to 1885. Previous owners of this modest home did some minor remodeling in the 1920s and ’40s, but luckily in a way the preserved a great base to grow on for the house and for our family.

Hammer and Hand was our builder and general contractor for the remodel and addition, with Stephanie Johnson Tottingham as architect, Willamette Building Solutions as structure engineer, Big Branch Woodworking for kitchen cabinetry, and Birdseye Hardwoods for flooring.

The groundwork for our home’s latest incarnation was laid in 2002 with the construction of a new foundation and livable basement.  The 2010 remodel involved removing the roof and adding another floor with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. This made room on the main floor for a larger, more functional kitchen and more family centric open space.

While creating a modern family home, we were committed to building a finished product that was a good fit with our Sellwood neighborhood’s landscape and architecture. Along these lines, we maintained the colored glass accents, interior fluted casing, high ceilings and the home’s connection to the street, where neighbors regularly gather.  The millwork inside our house was reproduced based on the original profiles in keeping with the home’s late Victorian design.

We also wanted to emphasize environmental integrity through sustainable and responsible use of materials and finishes. Much of the old lumber from the roof and ceiling was reused for framing the walls, and the wood benches, island countertop and long buffet in the dining room are all milled from the original 2×8 douglas fir rafters.

As we were interested in not only having a well crafted home but in a collaborative and enjoyable building process – one that would allow us to be part of the craft – we had to select a builder that we could be partners with.  Hammer and Hand exceeded our expectations and engaged us in a collaborative manner which made for an even better product – one that was on budget and on schedule.  At our typical Friday walkthrough meetings with James Eddy Peterson and Aaron Stevens we spent time not only looking over the current work and workmanship but also doing some thinking about potential creative solutions such as a custom island top milled from our ceiling rafters designed to facilitate our annual late summer pickle packing and canning, and the concrete porch slabs that will allow us to not worry about exposed wood and the placement of potted plants. Eddy and Aaron were a great team – now that our project is nearly complete I will miss our conversations and brainstorming sessions (I will have to look forward to our next project).

But certainly every project has a down side – this one seems to have very few – certainly the one that seems to stand out was simply obtaining financing to get the project started (“any day now”).  That process took almost as long as the project itself!  But it all worked out, better than expected, and we’re excited to open the house on October 2 for the Sellwood | Westmoreland Remodeled Home Tour.

We certainly find pleasure in telling the story – maybe we’ll see you there!

-David

Editor’s Note: The Sellwood | Westmoreland Remodeled Home Tour, also known as the Llewellyn Home Tour (because it’s a benefit for Llewellyn Elementary), took place on Saturday, October 2, 2010 from 10am to 5pm.

(For more about our services, visit our kitchen, bathroom, and home addition pages.)

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