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Kirkland Residence
Kirkland Residence
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Other Projects by MERTENSMEYER
Kirkland Residence
Firm
Type
STATUS
Concept
SIZE
1000 sqft - 3000 sqft
BUDGET
$1M - 5M
For decades, a 1929 utility easement and strict heritage tree protections kept this corner lot in Kirkland, Washington, vacant. The site was widely considered unbuildable, treated as a problem to be solved rather than a place to be inhabited. Our approach rejected that assumption.
Rather than contest the constraints, we worked within them. By overlaying arborist-mapped root protection zones with the Seattle City Light easement, we identified a highly constrained and unconventional buildable geometry that had long been dismissed as unusable. The house is lifted on three load-bearing walls precisely positioned between root systems, preserving the mature trees that define the site. With nearly two-thirds of the lot restricted, the remaining land was returned to the neighborhood as a curated public garden.
The elevated ground floor dissolves the boundary between interior and exterior. Circulation follows the sun’s path, capturing passive solar warmth and keeping the home bright within Seattle’s gray climate. A single bedroom above and a studio below that opens to an outdoor kitchen allow the house to balance openness and privacy.
Material and environmental systems operate in concert. Glulam beams and cross-laminated timber structure the house while creating a warm, tactile interior. Rammed earth provides thermal mass, moderating temperature shifts. Vegetation extends indoors through a living wall that filters air while stabilizing humidity. Solar-powered skylights drive natural ventilation, allowing the house to breathe for much of the year. Together, timber, earth, air, and plant life form an integrated system that supports both human comfort and planetary health.
This project demonstrates that regulatory, environmental, and temporal constraints are not limits on architecture, but active design inputs. By acknowledging easements, root systems, energy flows, and climate as spatial drivers, the house establishes a calibrated relationship between building, landscape, and public realm, producing value where development was previously dismissed.
Rather than contest the constraints, we worked within them. By overlaying arborist-mapped root protection zones with the Seattle City Light easement, we identified a highly constrained and unconventional buildable geometry that had long been dismissed as unusable. The house is lifted on three load-bearing walls precisely positioned between root systems, preserving the mature trees that define the site. With nearly two-thirds of the lot restricted, the remaining land was returned to the neighborhood as a curated public garden.
The elevated ground floor dissolves the boundary between interior and exterior. Circulation follows the sun’s path, capturing passive solar warmth and keeping the home bright within Seattle’s gray climate. A single bedroom above and a studio below that opens to an outdoor kitchen allow the house to balance openness and privacy.
Material and environmental systems operate in concert. Glulam beams and cross-laminated timber structure the house while creating a warm, tactile interior. Rammed earth provides thermal mass, moderating temperature shifts. Vegetation extends indoors through a living wall that filters air while stabilizing humidity. Solar-powered skylights drive natural ventilation, allowing the house to breathe for much of the year. Together, timber, earth, air, and plant life form an integrated system that supports both human comfort and planetary health.
This project demonstrates that regulatory, environmental, and temporal constraints are not limits on architecture, but active design inputs. By acknowledging easements, root systems, energy flows, and climate as spatial drivers, the house establishes a calibrated relationship between building, landscape, and public realm, producing value where development was previously dismissed.
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