Studio Spring 2018

The fifth OregonBILDS house was designed by students in a studio led by Tom Hahn. Like house #4, the fifth house features an enclosed space, set up for expansion. But unlike house #4, house #5 is smaller and all on one floor. The expansion space evolved from the realization that none of the first four houses had used the garage for a vehicle. (three were storage and one was converted to an office) Thus, the space at the north of the house, originally intended to be a garage, was changed to storage with a framed floor level with the main house, and vehicles were relegated to the code-mandated driveway.

The house is simpler and smaller than previous houses, reflecting the need to control construction costs while keeping the house affordable. Like the previous four houses, this house consolidates kitchen, eating, and living into one large space to make one large social room, but this is the first to experiment with the kitchen in the central position.

Like all previous houses, #5 has a front porch on the street for transition and social interaction, and also a covered outdoor space at the rear for connection to the land during transitional weather.

A section of the building shows a taller (9ft) ceiling over the main social space and a normal 8ft ceiling over bedrooms and bathrooms with storage above. The uninsulated storage/bonus space with lower-pitch roof at the north can be easily converted to living space.