Firmitas - Mercer Island, WA

Structural Engineer: Chalker Putnam Collins and Scott
General Contractor: Owen Roberts Inc.

"Account will be taken of strength [firmitas] when the foundations are carried down to the solid ground, and when from each material there is a choice of supplies without parsimony..." from Vitruvius, De Architecture, Book I. c. III

A live-work space designed by the architects for themselves. The house is carefully situated in a fifty year old botanist's garden. It is the first of three phases with the final form based on the universal idea of the courtyard house expressed in a contemporary idiom; the guiding idea deriving from the rustic Italian courtyard house. Future phases will include additional wings further defining the limits of the courtyard.