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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When we remodel well, we’re upcycling homes – repurposing houses to meet the needs of 21-century families, and to meet their ecological goals as well.  The embodied energy contained in older homes is just too valuable to simply wipe the slate clean and build entirely new neighborhoods.  Yes, we need to build low-impact and sustainable new homes like Passive Houses and backyard cottages, but we also need to be expert at green refurbishing, upcycling our city one house at a time.

The video below features the Great British Refurb Campaign competition winner, which was awarded an eco-makeover to transform an existing house into a model of green living.  In a recent post we mentioned the “Pyramid of Conservation” which helps would-be green dwellers prioritize the most cost-effective carbon-reducing investments to make.  You’ll notice in this video that the entire pyramid was thrown at the project – everything from new insulation to shiny new windows and solar panels.  The results are impressive: a reduction of carbon emissions of 80%.  (Thanks to TreeHugger for turning us on to this video.)

-Zack

Jargon alert: the homeowner mentions the 10:10 campaign, a global campaign to cut carbon emissions by 10% a year, starting in 2010.

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Simply put, you can have the most environmentally-friendly construction process for the most efficient and healthy home, but if the house is located somewhere that forces occupants to drive for every errand, then you have not created a truly sustainable home.  Regardless of how “green” they may feel, denizens of buildings like this cannot avoid adding lots of earth-warming carbon to the atmosphere as part of their daily routine.

Instead, truly green homes are woven into a built environment that supports sustainable living – less driving, less energy consumption, a smaller ecological footprint.  For this reason, the authors laud Portland’s Urban Growth Boundary.  This UGB refocuses development on the region’s urban core and creates a more compact urban form scaled to people (walking, biking, taking transit) not just cars.  This provides us with green options.  We can still drive where we need to go, but there are other good choices for getting around as well.

Now, as responsible home builders we build green, reclaiming and recycling materials, striving for LEED and Passive House standards, making careful materials choices, etc.  But what can we do, as would-be green-dwellers and green builders, to ensure that our homes and businesses become part of sustainable patterns of community life?

It’s not an easy question and doesn’t bring easy answers.  But there are at least three things that we can do to ensure that green structures don’t go gray:

1. Fill It In.  Infill development maximizes existing infrastructure, supports walkable neighborhoods, and preserves greenfields on the region’s periphery by concentrating development in existing communities.  Infill structures built to green standards can therefore achieve the more elusive goal of “sustainability”.  Our recent Musician’s Dwelling is a nice example.
2. Granny Flats.  An Accessory Dwelling Unit can be a converted garage, a basement or attic addition, or a new standalone backyard cottage.  These compact living units, complete with kitchen, bath and all living amenities, add a distinct second residential unit to an existing property.  Perfect for sustainable, efficient living.
3. Remodel.  That’s right.  Following green remodeling principles, repurpose that old house to 21-century needs.  Existing structures contain tons of embodied energy.  By remodeling these homes, we’re repurposing or “upcycling” today’s neighborhoods one house at a time, preserving their embodied energy and weaving these households into existing neighborhood fabric.  Sustainable homes that sustain community.

-Zack

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Okay, maybe that’s a silly question.  But figuratively speaking, two-legged stools are awfully prevalent in the design-build realm these days.

There’s a common misconception out there that “design-build” equates to contractors that handle all design work in-house with staff designers or architects.  Not so.  While this inflexible design-build model works for some projects, it’s poorly suited for others and can serve clients pretty badly.

Why?  Because it reduces the three-legged stool of project development – client, designer and builder – to two.  The result?  Lack of balance.

Don’t get me wrong, the problem is not inherent to design-build.  After all, we at Hammer and Hand are proud to engage in design-build collaboration.  The problem is with the warping of what design-build really means.

“Design-build” actually refers to a project development strategy in which one entity brings designer, builder and client together to foster collaboration.  Done right, design-build is a streamlined process that facilitates timely, meaningful input by all three “legs of the stool” resulting, ultimately, in a stronger final product.

Put another way, it’s about setting the conditions for effective advocacies.  For a project to meet its full potential and really shine, it requires healthy, empowered advocacies from designer, builder and client – all three realms of project development:

The Designer: Advocates for the way a project’s spaces work and interact with one another, its volumetrics, and its aesthetics.

The Builder: Advocates for safety, efficiency, cost containment, and longevity of the building envelope.

The Client: Advocates for their needs now and in the future, financial realities, and for all the ways they want the building to serve them.

A good design-build process brings all three of these advocacies around one table to work together, advocate for what is important to them, grapple for joint solutions, and ultimately craft a building design that is greater than the sum of its parts.  We’re not talking about the first and easy solution here.  It’s the hard-fought one that finally emerges, stronger in every way for the creative and dynamic process that the three advocacies have fostered and undergone.  True design-build-client collaboration.

The problem with conventional design-build processes that tuck the design function behind the builder’s walls is that it’s no longer a three-way conversation.  The weighing of designer and builder concerns still happens, but behind closed doors, hidden from the client.  In essence, this brand of “design-build” builder absorbs the design advocacy, digests it, and then communicates a simplified version for the client.   The problem is obvious: real collaboration between designer, builder and client can no longer happen.

For smaller, simpler projects, that can be okay – updating bathroom surfaces, a door and window swap, straightforward cabinet replacement, the deck out back.  In fact, we hire a de facto in-house designer for just these sorts of projects.  It’s great for efficiency and economy.  But with more complex projects like full kitchen and bathroom remodels, additions, basement renovations and whole house remodels, the client deserves (and really requires) strong, independent voices to fully represent the designer and builder advocacies.

That’s why we’ve developed close, ongoing relationships with a cadre of independent designers, each of whom offers unique skills and expertise to match each of our client’s needs.  Some projects require a simple draftsperson, others an interior designer, still others a full-scale architecture firm.  Because we do not hire our designers and architects as in-house employees, we’re able to draw on this cadre of diverse talent to match specific client needs with designers’ schedule, budget, design sense, and personality.

So does Hammer and Hand do design-build?  Yes!  But in collaboration with independent designers.  We are the first point of contact for clients to begin project development and we’ll usher you through the entire process from dreaming to construction completion.  We’re passionate about doing project development on a stable, three-legged, designer-builder-client structure.  It’s the best way to live up to John Ruskin’s admonition:

“When we build, let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for.”

-Zack

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I sat down this morning with Hammer & Hand’s lead carpenter and craftsperson extraordinaire Stephanie Lynch to discuss her work creating a cool second floor addition in Portland’s Mt. Tabor neighborhood.

The Portland remodel project, designed by Emerick Architects and built by Stephanie and her team, transformed a single story Craftsman home into a two-story jewel.

“The whole idea was to make the addition look like it’s always been there,” said Steph.

How was this accomplished?  Close attention to detail, exacting craft, and excellent design.

The detail of the exterior siding, with its short-short-long pattern was carefully recreated, as was the unique flaring trim detail of the window casings.  This casing was also applied to the custom dog entrance accessed from the back deck.

“We built this little exterior doggy door with a water trough right outside the door,” Steph explained.  “The dogs walk through the water to rinse their feet off, walk through the door into the mud room, dry their feet while walking across the mud room rug, and then enter the house.”

The new back deck and planter box were crafted with ipe, creating a within-arm’s-reach space for part of the owners’ plant collection.

This staircase was built with clear vertical grain (CVG) fir in the classic Craftsman style.

The unique exterior window casing detail was carried indoors and used throughout the addition.  Groovy historic light fixtures grace the bedrooms and hall.

The bathroom features a classic floor and vanity as well as more contemporary touches like a wall-mounted toilet and “apple martini” countertop.  “Our clients wanted to stay true to the house, but also added touches of the modern,” said Steph.

Whenever I get the chance to chat with Hammer & Hand’s craftspeople about projects like this one, I’m struck by the passion that folks like Steph bring to the work.  This is a company of stewards – building professionals who care about preserving the narrative contained within each building by crafting work that is, in Steph’s words, “true to the house”.  It’s a fire in the belly that can’t be faked … and it shines through in the beautiful results of each job.

-Zack

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Also known as the Llewellyn Home Tour by many (it’s a benefit for Llewellyn Elementary), the tour takes place on Saturday, October 2 from 10am to 5pm.  (Tickets are $12 and will be available at Llewellyn Elementary and Sellwood New Seasons).

I got the chance to visit the project this afternoon with Hammer and Hand’s president, Sam Hagerman.  It’s a beautiful Victorian home addition with nice modern touches … gorgeous wood cabinets and floors, handsome tiled bathrooms, the works.  Our crew, headed by lead carpenter Eddy Peterson, is making finishing touches now, including custom woodwork led by our master jointer and lead sawyer Dan Palmer.

We’re excited about the tour and, in fact, have become lead sponsors of the event.  As an added bonus, we’ll be showing several Upcycled Furniture pieces in the home on the tour date.  So please check it out!

Below is an exterior shot of the home taken with my iPhone this afternoon …

-Zack

P.S.  And please don’t forget the Build It Green! Home Tour coming up on September 25.  We’ve got two homes featured on that tour, as well as extensive booth space at free the fair at EcoHaus scheduled for after the tour.

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Our friend Michelle Jeresek of Departure Design graciously agreed to write this joint post about one of our two projects to be featured on the Build It Green! Home Tour coming up on September 25, 2010.  (By the way, you can follow Michelle’s tweets on Twitter: @michellejeresek.)  Please read on …

NoPo Duplex Conversion (aka “Twin Studios”)
Owners Becca and Eric envisioned modifying their 1902, 1,500sf split-level home into a duplex, with one unit above and one below.  Their planning background and strong design sensibility helped drive a deeply collaborative design process with Departure and Hammer and Hand.  Working strategically to maximize value, the remodel focused on elements with the biggest “bang for the buck”, including a small modern steel-clad addition at the rear of the home.  A fully-accessible garden-level unit created through a complete basement conversion/remodel is accessed through the rear courtyard.  A communal backyard fosters a sense of community with adjacent neighbors (including Becca and Eric’s own home).

Sustainability in Design
As designers and builders, we see or role as stewards of the built environment, so we worked to honor both the embodied energy and embodied narrative contained within the building’s original structure.  The goal was to create a lasting design and to build it with lasting craft – the definition of fundamental sustainability.  Big sustainable design notions are at work, like:

• increased density
• compact living (750sf units)
• modest build-outs
• repurposing of an existing building
• shared, community backyard
• aging-in-place with accessible design

Sustainability in Materials
While the duplex incorporates a full suite of sustainable building features, materiality was particularly key.  We preserved embodied energy with salvaged and long lifecycle materials:

• The deconstructed chimney reappears in the courtyard paving.
• All of the original doors were relocated and reused within project.
• Original wood siding from Becca and Eric’s adjacent home clads the new addition.
• A salvaged bathtub and sink from the ReBuilding Center finish the upper unit’s bathroom.

This reuse, repurposing and upcycling pays homage to the story of the building and its community context.

Kitchen
The duplex features two hyper-efficient and charming kitchens that support the project’s goals for compact living and affordable design.  Careful design packs a full modern kitchen into just ten-and-a-half lineal feet.  Compact appliances and extra deep counters ensure that spaciousness and utility aren’t sacrificed.

To squeeze more design impact from a limited budget, we customized Ikea cabinets with finished plywood detailing.

Please join us on the Build It Green! tour and check out this project, as well as our Musician’s Dwelling, for yourself.

– Michelle and 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.)

The post Sellwood Victorian Remodel/Addition: Post by client David Grigsby appeared first on Hammer & Hand.

That’s what Claire Louvard and Sebastien Viala are doing for the French publication Eco Maison Bois & energies renouvelables.

They breezed through Portland today and visited Hammer and Hand to see how our carpenters do things.  M.A.C. Casares and I met them here at our headquarters, showed them the upcycling and efficiency features built into our offices, and then piled into the truck and drove down to Sellwood to show off the Grigsby remodel addition (handiwork of lead carpenter James Peterson and his team).

In addition to being reminded just how much smaller Europeans build than Americans (something we’re working to address through compact infill projects and accessory dwelling units), I was surprised to learn from Claire and Sebastien that only 5% of French homes are wood construction.  I had a sense that wood construction was less common in Europe, but 5% was lower than I would have expected.  Mostly they build with concrete over there, due in part to a deliberate response after WWII to build difficult-to-destroy structures.  Definitely a very different built context.  I gather that their world tour to study wood construction is part PR program (to promote alternatives to concrete construction) and part self-education for the French building industry.

It was great to meet Claire and Sebastien and fun to share our work with them (it’s always fun to talk about our projects with other wood geeks.)  We wish them well on their travels!

–Zack

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