Every custom home is a one-off, and this scheme accommodates the cultural ecology of clients of Asian descent. They asked for three separate pavilions joined by a ring of circulation spaces: daily living quarters that guests would never see, a tea house, and a secondary structure for entertaining. Taking cues from Japanese architecture, Graham Baba Architects assembled these volumes around a water garden on the wooded, sloping site. The buildings trace the general footprint of a previous home that had been torn down and face a small clearing that offers a view of Puget Sound.
Anchoring the U-shaped wood, concrete, and glass composition is the main living volume, with a lower-level wellness zone containing massage and exercise rooms, a hot tub, sauna, and glass-enclosed pool jutting into the landscape. “This well-appointed fitness area is a pretty large part of the house,” says Brett Baba, AIA. Above the double-height main living zone are two primary bedrooms with sliding shoji screens between them.
The raised tea house, also used as a meditation room, sits between the living and guest volumes. Water from the entry courtyard creates a sense of calm, flowing into the hollow beneath the tea house and into a pool behind it. Along the façades, “we incorporated wood screens that are operable so the couple can fine tune their privacy,” Brett says. “The wood might be Alaskan yellow cedar or a similar wood that evokes Hinoki cypress.”
Highlands Residence by Graham Baba Architects
Shoreline, Washington
Architect: Brett Baba, AIA, Graham Baba Architects, Seattle
Builder: Lockhart Suver, Seattle
Project size: 12,000 square feet
Site size: 4 acres
Renderings: Conica Studio