The Seattle housing shortage has increased pressure on single family neighborhoods to provide more usable space on limited single family lots. Normative new housing demolishes existing small buildings and replaces them with ?Seattle Modern Boxes? that maximize building size and density within zoning setbacks.

© Nic Lehoux

Architects: Wittman Estes

Location: Seattle, United States

Architects In Charge: Matt Wittman, Jody Estes

Construction: Greg Winger Construction, Western Sound Concrete Works

Project Year: 2018

Photographs: Nic Lehoux

© Nic Lehoux

Text description provided by the architects. The Seattle housing shortage has increased pressure on single family neighborhoods to provide more usable space on limited single family lots. Normative new housing demolishes existing small buildings and replaces them with ?Seattle Modern Boxes? that maximize building size and density within zoning setbacks.
© Nic Lehoux

Grasshopper Studio and Courtyard offers an alternative density called courtyard urbanism. Maintaining the small footprint of a 1940s house, a multifunctional studio was added along the rear alley. The resulting interstitial space formed a private terrace open to the sky. This courtyard urbanism tripled the usable square footage of the site by blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor space. A central Silk tree provides dappled shade in summer. The illusion of a mu...