CLTHouse

The CLT House is a modest, 1,500 sf single-family house for a family of four, including a writer/historian and architect in Madison Park. The materiality of the house and the interior experiences recall the ubiquitous small wooden beach cabins of the Northwest. Left almost raw, with a light whitewash, the walls of CLT (Cross Laminated Timber) are experienced as a beach cabin - a raw, visceral natural experience of nature. The white pine knots are exposed, interior trim is kept to a minimum, and the utilities are hidden in a central service core. Situated on a small, 2,500 sf triangular lot across from an alley and rear bank parking lot, the house negotiates between the settled, established neighborhood and the commercial strip off of Madison Ave. Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) arose as an ecological response and is now being proposed as an alternative to more carbon intensive materials of concrete and steel. Its use promotes timber as a viable building material that if grown, managed, and harvested responsibly, can continue to elevate the region of Cascadia as an innovative culture of highly sustainable strategies. Experimenting with this new tectonic, the CLT panels are routed using standard CNC technology, and vaulted to create visceral experiences of light and space. The floors and walls panels were designed to fit within 16 panels of 8’ x 40’.