SALA Architects
salaarc.com

Marta Snow, AIA

Oak in Oaks

This project is part of our Small Projects Showcase, which demonstrates the value an architect brings to residential projects sized 600 square feet or smaller.

Project Type: Addition

Project Square Footage: 230 square feet | sunroom addition

Sponsors: Showcase Renovations (builder)

After house hunting for a near-retirement move, the homeowners realized they cherished their long-time location and extensive backyard shade garden under formidable oaks. The house already offered compact one-level living, and just needed a comfortable interior space to enjoy the garden year-round, for years to come.

Existing conditions informed the addition’s form: preserving the office’s backyard view, keeping the outdoor kitchen in place, shielding a nearby neighbor’s views, and allowing morning light to enter over the existing house, through new high windows. A prow-shaped form emerged, wrapped in generous built-in seating that offers a sheltered place to read while immersed in the garden’s greenness. Built-in shelves, inspired by the homeowner’s pottery collection, provide well-lit display space.

Material choices echo the site’s oaks. The interior is lined with one material: clear rift sawn white oak with a natural, clear matte finish. The adjacent existing red-oak slat flooring integrates seamlessly after refinishing. Outside, the roof and exterior are clad in unfinished cedar shakes, left to weather naturally, evoking tree bark. Custom copper window shrouds, rain-chain scupper, and deck planter will patina over time, mirroring hues of the pottery collection, further tying the addition to the owners’ established lives on this site.

AIA Framework for Design Excellence: Design for Well-being

A primary driver of this small sun-room addition was to improve the clients’ well-being through architectural moves such as natural daylight from all sides, acoustic separation from a nearby freeway, visual separate from a nearby neighbor, thermal comfort throughout the seasons, and direct visual and physical access to an existing lush backyard.Natural materials such as rift sawn white oak interiors, unstained cedar shakes and copper accents are used to connect the built form with its garden setting, with the expectation that the materials will weather and change over the years.

What is the AIA Framework for Design Excellence? Learn more »