Boise may be popular in the financial, and lifestyle magazines, but in regards to contemporary architecture, we are not trendsetters. While I greatly admire a lot of what the city has done, moving the ball forward in regards to design has not been a priority. This is a conservative city, and it is definitely a conservative state.

That’s not to say that some of the solid, safe work is not without its merits.  Boise has some truly solid examples of various styles, as any city of its size and history usually does. Contemporary design may not come to mind when thinking of Boise, but we do in fact have some respectable works lurking in our midst. What I would like to do in this series of blogs is to explore some of Boise’s best examples of Contemporary Design, and learn about who and how they were created.

While being in the architectural field, I am in no way an architectural critic. I will lend my opinion to some of what I see, but this will be more informative than expiscatory. What I would like to do is to look at what examples we have in our midst, and find out who created them, who lives in them, what their back story is, etcetera. We have much to learn about from the people around us.

I will pick some of the low hanging fruit out there.  In 1993 my wife and I purchased a 1 acre parcel of land in Boise’s Highlands area.  It was a steep lot, with only moderate views of the ski hill to the north.  My wife is an interior designer, co-owner of seed interiors, and I design custom homes for clients throughout the country.  Designing our home together was a natural thing for us to do.

The Highland’s subdivision grew up around it in the 1970′s and 80′s, leaving this little parcel behind.  It was difficult to build on, and the homes around it were the typical suburban solutions, ie, flat lots created by using compacted fill.  This style didn’t really appeal to us, but what we did find in the neighborhood was a willingness to try something different, hidden amongst the usual fare.  Some of the examples were mid-century imitations, and the typical ranch homes.  A few interesting examples, but all relatively conservative.

There is a 50 foot drop from the curbside, to the lowest point at the back of the lot 150 feet away.  To make a manageable building pad using  compacted fill would be extra ordinarily expensive, as well as a bit of an eyesore.  Because of these constraints, the lot went undeveloped.  When my wife chanced upon it for sale, we looked up the information, and found out it was an “illegal remnant lot”.  It was part of the city, but never platted.  We snatched it up, and converted the 1 acre parcel into a .6 acre one, and a .4 acre one to the east.  We sold that smaller portion, and used the proceeds to fund our home.

Both of our aesthetics tend toward a simple, livable modern.  Contemporary architecture can feel a little cold, and we had just adopted a little girl into our family, and wanted it to be warm, and inviting.  Not limiting ourselves to the typical housing styles in the neighborhood also allowed us to respond to our site much more easily.  Instead of forcing the site to conform to our home, we let the home spill down the lot, working with the drop in elevation.

We ended up with an upside-down home, where we park and enter in the upper level, and three of the four bedrooms are on the lower level.  We had the idea that we wanted to build a 2400 SF home, but because of the layout of the upper level, and the foundation system that was developed to accommodate it, we ended up with a little over 3000 square feet.  A bit more than we want, but it would have been more problematic to not enclose the space.

One of the organizing features we used, was the section.  We wanted to be able to use Boise’s cooler evenings in the summer to expel the warm air in the house, and bring in the cool.  We have operable clearstory windows at the highest point on the house.  After we open these up, and the windows in the lower level, we have about 25 feet of differential from top to bottom.  This creates a nice little breeze.  Our prevailing wind pattern is also from the North West, which is over the valley.  By opening these windows, we get the natural breezes in the evenings as well.

Below are a few photographs of the interior, and one of the exterior.  I will be posting Blog entries highlighting our construction process, and exploring what we learned along the way.  There are many more facets to this house that I would like to share, so check back often.

-Mark Wagner