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An Emerging Aesthetic

Architects have a vision for the simple, sensible and smart

Just what size is downsize? Depends, architects say. Discussions with those sending smaller homes off drawing boards bring up considerations of need, value, convenience and workmanship. It's not so much about saving money as it is reapportioning resources and materials. Smarter houses. Healthier houses.

The downsizing examples featured today are for the most part contemporary, an aesthetic that naturally suits smaller, smarter dwellings.

"One of the important aspects of Modernism is it isn't gratuitous," says Eric Cobb of Eric Cobb Architects. "And the economy has driven solutions back to some very fundamental bones — about light and space, not about ornament and materials."

And light and space lie at the very heart of the very best homes here.

"When a house has daylighting it will feel far larger," says Whidbey Island architect Ross Chapin, who is writing a book for the Taunton Press, "Pocket Neighborhoods: Small-scale Community Within a Large-scale World." He has been working on what he calls "sensibly sized houses" for about 25 years.

"We design houses often between 400 square feet and 2,400 square feet," Chapin says. "The appropriate house is related to the person and their life, and lifestyle and the household. For example, a single woman in her mid-50s with a simple lifestyle may be able to live in 700 square feet very well. If you have a family of four teenagers, each person needs a place of one's own, and there needs to be the family commons."

Who is the client for these smaller, upscale homes? Not just empty-nesters.

"Younger couples are saying we really don't need that much house," says Lane Williams of COOP15. "They're asking for homes in the 2,000- to 3,000-square-foot-range when often what they're offered is 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 square feet. The builders who are putting up new homes haven't figured this out yet.

"The United States represents 5 percent of the world's population, we consume 30 percent of the resources and generate 50 percent of the waste. When I came across those numbers it really hit home about sustainable homebuilding."

Northwest architects are wrestling with their own consciousness when it comes to putting another too-big house on the earth. "I don't care if you grow grass on your roof. It's not sustainable if it's half again as big as the houses around you," Williams says.

Whose responsibility is it to change the perception of upscale, forward-thinking home design?

"Architects," Williams says. "We have to educate our clients. The architects also have to offer options. When a client is asking for all of these spaces, the architect has to come back and say, 'What if we combined some of these functions? Yes, this room is a den most of the time, but it can also function as the guest room you need at Christmastime' — or help them understand how much that guest room and extra bath is costing them. Did they know they could put up Mom and Dad at the Four Seasons every Christmas for less than the cost of those rooms?"

The point today is that a thoughtful smaller home is more focused, more personal and plain cheaper to heat and quicker to clean. And, Chapin says, it's good for your family's health.

"I think we're up to 850 square feet per person in a house," he says. "Each person has their own private world. It's difficult to connect with the family. The child can disappear into their room with their TV and the phone and all their gadgets.

"The closeness of the family is maybe a source of friction on one hand, but it's also about family health on the other. I think American houses are too large for family health."