A Timeless Contemporary
Space constraints didn't confine an infinitely comfortable design
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 BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES THE LAKE WASHINGTON view house Tom Lenchek built for himself and his wife, Mary Drobka, is anchored to a steep hillside in Seattle's Leschi neighborhood. A cedar ceiling warms the cube-shaped master suite, upper left, and separate master bath, upper right, by extending outward to blur the line between interior and exterior. Site limitations inspired the vertical design.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES A LIGHT WELL above the entryway ensures a bright welcome in the foyer, where concrete, glass, wood, stone and steel harmonize.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES ARCHITECT TOM LENCHEK hasn't changed the kitchen because it has worked very well. "If I were doing this space now, there probably would be a sink on the island and the appliances might be a little fancier, though these function just fine." As do maple cabinets and beech floors.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES THE KITCHEN work area has a view of the greenbelt and no sense of confinement.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES THIS MAIN-FLOOR view looks from the living room toward the kitchen, just beyond the stairs. The white-painted steel stairway and vertical support columns amplify the living room's expansiveness, as does light from window walls on the west and south sides of the house.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES LENCHEK DESIGNED the master bedroom for natural light, views and privacy. His use of built-in cupboards, a walk-through closet (out of view, to left) and the clean look of natural cedar boards suggest timeless utility. |
ARCHITECTS AT HOME
TOM LENCHEK LEADS Balance Associates Architects, a firm with six employees, a Seattle office in Belltown and a long list of cabins and homes that have been publicized in national magazines and on television. We spoke recently with Lenchek at his three-bedroom Leschi home, which he designed and shares with his wife, Mary Drobka, an attorney.
Q: What were your major concerns as you were designing this house?
A: It's pretty site-driven, because of the difficulty of the lot's slope. The bigger the footprint, the more expensive the house, because the foundation was expensive. We ended up with this central-loaded corridor because it gave the most usable square footage for the least amount of circulation space.
Q: By "central-loaded corridor" you mean?
A: All the circulation basically takes place in the middle of the house. There are really no hallways, per se. Essentially, the hallway is the stairway. There's very little wasted space.
Q: Was that difficult to accomplish?
A: It was a trick getting the stairway to work with a private way to get from the bedroom on one side of the house over to the master bath on the other. I designed a passageway through the walk-in closets at the back of the bedroom. My wife suggested adding small view windows in the passageway, and that gave both privacy and views.
Q: Was the house an innovation for you, and how has it worked out?
A: This is the first house I did with a big window-wall. Since then, nearly all of our projects have this feature in the design. We're lucky in Seattle to be able to have this much glass and not be really uncomfortable a large part of the year.
Q: Would you call this an eco-friendly building?
A: It is super-insulated; the R-values for the wall are something like R-24 or R-26. This is low-E glazing, which, in 1992, was kind of new technology. There's the passive ventilation system — the air drafts up and out. It's a pretty energy-efficient house, not very expensive to operate. The real bonus is the level of comfort. Even with this much glass, it really doesn't get cold in here. We use a gas boiler and an in-floor heating system.
Q: How would you go about changing or updating, or have you thought about that?
A: No, I'd just sell it and do something different. I think the thing that keeps us here even more than the house is the location. It's so quiet. No, if I were to approach this site today, it would be a completely different kind of house. So I'd love to tear it down and do something different (laughter).
Q: But what don't you like about it now?
A: One thing, we had to go up for the view, but we have this really nice garden. The only easy interaction with the garden is standing up here, looking down on it. Whereas our weekend house in Eastern Washington, you essentially walk through the landscaped area to get to the house. So when you come and go, you are engaged with the landscape. Even our decks there are more retaining walls that have been planted. This is more urban.
Q: It sounds as if your style has evolved.
A: I think the big difference between the work we're doing now and this is that this was so site- and form-driven. We do pay attention to site with every project, but now, projects are really driven more by materials and the architecture itself — how is that building built? How does the structure come together? We design now so you can see that; it's exposed. Here, it's all hidden away under the Sheetrock.
Q: What would we see under the Sheetrock?
A: If I were to do this today, probably all the structural steelwork inside here would be blackened steel, so you could see what it is. Although I'm not certain that having this particular structure exposed would work that well, given the design. It would become too busy. As you expose the structure and make it more architectonic, as people like to call it, the building has to get simpler — both interior and exterior. Otherwise, it becomes overwhelming, over-detailed — as if nothing can happen by chance.
Q: Is there a trend for your firm? Are your projects tending to be smaller but more elegant, for example?
A: Yes. Because we are doing so many second homes, they tend in general to be somewhat smaller. The bigger projects take on a life of their own and go on for years, and they're interesting. But the little projects are kind of like a gesture painting or a one-course dinner; you get one shot, it's done fairly quickly and it has to be right.
Q: What led to your interest in architecture?
A: The earliest toys I remember having, when I was 4 or 5 years old, were the bridges and houses I built out of scrap lumber my dad brought home. I always liked to put things together and take them apart; I was attracted to building as opposed to design. When I was in my teens, one of the guidance counselors said I should be an architect. I went to the University of Wisconsin, graduated, and took my first job in architecture, in 1978, with a firm in Olympia, so I interned there.
Q: Is apprenticeship a good training ground?
A: I'm still not sure what the best way to educate architects is. The breadth of what architects do has gotten wider and wider. Being a smaller firm that mainly does residential-scale work, we need someone who designs really well but has to understand how it all goes together. What we're seeing is that some of the people coming out of school are closer to artists than architects, or they are super-technical but have no art. Finding those who can do both is rare.
Dean Stahl is a Seattle writer. Ben Benschneider is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff photographer.
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