2026 RDAA | Project of the Year | French Creek Workshops | Wittman Estes

French Creek Workshops rose to Project of the Year not only for its considered design but for the creative execution of an unusual program. Our jury was unanimously enamored by the dual themes of live/work and aging in place, not to mention the way it engages the local climate and landscape. 

Designed for a retired couple with an enviable number of hands-on hobbies, this holistic compound consists of a single-level main house and a separate workshop positioned to shield the house from road noise. Between them, a reflecting pond collects the copious amount of rainfall that sheets off the corrugated steel roofs. “It’s a seamless connection of program, construction, landscape, detailing, and finishes, so well rounded,” the judges said. “It’s luxurious in its experience of quality, but there’s a modesty to the buildings that are perfectly detailed.”

On a site receiving 35 inches of average annual rainfall, the scheme was inspired by the ancient Roman impluvium, a shallow cistern that captured rainwater from a central roof opening. The C-shaped house faces north toward the workshop across the main pool. The workshop is canted to follow the slope’s contours: a loading dock on the east near the driveway is 4 feet off the ground, while the other side of the building is on grade. Its shed roof slopes up toward the road on the north, where a clerestory admits diffuse light into the glass studio, woodshop, and model-making room. The interior is wrapped with glulam fir beams, fir car decking, and maple plywood walls.

Across the pond, the main house rooflines tip up toward the south, east, and west, so that the lower rooflines of the house and workshop face each other, preserving views of the surrounding woods and creating a sense of intimacy at the compound’s center. In addition to allowing rainwater to sheet evenly into the pool and garden, their deep eaves shelter the elevated cedar and concrete pathways that skirt the buildings and shortcut across the water. And the inward-sloping roofs provide a cozy sense of shelter from inside looking out. “You sense the landscape of the courtyard from inside, but outside it feels like a beautiful outdoor room that adds a whole other dimension to the project,” a judge said. Another commented: “The landscape and architecture are really interconnected rather than the house being an object placed.”

That porosity was the point. “The clients wanted to be outside as much as inside; the spaces flow in a way that allows them to never be more than a room away from the outdoors,” says Matt Wittman, AIA. Detailed for aging in place, the house has wide doorways, flush thresholds, balanced natural light, and non-slip, sandblasted concrete floors with hydronic radiant heating, lending a warm, thermal quality. Fir lift-slide doors open the dining room to the pool courtyard. A patio on the southwest, behind the house, offers a sunny resting spot next to a second pond. In addition to the studios in the workshop building, a weaving studio and hobby room occupy the west-facing leg of the house, along with a guest bedroom, bath, and mudroom.

“The interiors are more vividly rendered than what we would normally do, with blue-painted panels in the kitchen, richly toned cedar 1×4 tongue-in-groove ceilings, alder wall panels, and terrazzo counters,” Matt says. “They are artists themselves so wanted to be more expressive, and contrasting colors are good for aging eyes.” 

Outside, however, the house and workshop are crisply monochromatic, clad in tight-knot tongue-in-groove cedar, and the roofs are made from 24-gauge painted corrugated steel that reflects the region’s agrarian past. Where the house roof slopes up, steel fins support the deep wood soffits to maximize the sunlight coming in. The judges noticed, praising the “thinness and the expression of structure on the underside of the corrugation.”

Says Matt: “The outrigger cantilevers at each bay taper to a knife edge around the corrugated eave where the water drips off. Water is collected around the edge with crushed stone and a pipe drainage system, and over the pond.” Cedar slats filter the sun’s glare on the west and are also used to screen the workshop’s loading dock from view on the approach. The fir windows came from a nearby manufacturer, and local artisans and fabricators supplied many other design elements.

Our jury members applauded the consistency of the material palette. “The exterior detailing creates a strong and vivid identity for the house,” one said. “The roof is understated but very elegant and crisp. The tight material palette is deployed in a very smart way.”

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