Chasen Residence

Architect: in situ studio (visit website)

Location: Raleigh, NC

100 Word Description: The Chasen Residence is in a hip and evolving historic neighborhood just east of downtown Raleigh and was built as a young couple’s first home. The house is a first in Raleigh – affordable, small, modern, and urban. The 1,451 SF plan confines the entries, stairs, kitchen, half bath, and upstairs hallway to one side of the house, opening the remaining space for living. The house uses numerous passive and active sustainable strategies, including daylighting, sun shading, cross ventilation, solar hot water, photovoltaics, rainwater cisterns, an efficient SPFI envelope, and a high-efficiency mini-split HVAC system.  Total construction cost was $117/SF.

Architect’s Statement: Our clients are a young couple who wanted an affordable, small, sustainable, modern house in an historic downtown neighborhood that would fit well with the existing context.  Our response was to design a simple, two-story gabled form with a generous front porch that utilizes numerous passive and active sustainable strategies.  The house has three bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths, despite being only 1,451 SF, and also features a screened porch in the back.

Type of Construction: The house is built with typical platform framing methods and carefully designed to the module of common building materials.  As a result, all framing waste was hauled off in a single pick-up truck bed.  Foundations are concrete and CMU, and four steel braced frames provide lateral stability for the open main level.  Quality form and space are formed of the most basic materials – CMU, hardiplank, hardipanel, vinyl windows, asphalt shingles, finished subfloor, painted sheetrock, subway tile, spare trim.  Insulation, ventilation, solar collection, and HVAC systems are designed to use as little grid energy as possible.

Photography: Richard Leo Johnson/Atlantic Archives, Inc.