This 400 Square Foot ADU in Mill Valley Offers Great Design

When an architect is free of the constraints of the shopper and the evaluate board, superb design can occur, even in a small footprint. Architect Heidi Richardson, founder and director of Richardson Pribuss Architectsdesigned a small however elegant Cottage who lives bigger than his 400 sq. toes.

Heidi resides in Marin County, California. After the state handed a provision to encourage ADUs, she and her husband, Michael, determined to construct their very own. “There isn’t a planning evaluate for those who adjust to the order,” she notes. “As an architect, I believed it was too good to be true, so we higher do it now.”

The undertaking, like several new building, nonetheless had some constraints. As a result of they dwell in a floodplain, the ADU needed to be raised 4 toes above floor stage, giving it a 12-foot-tall roof. “That was the largest problem,” she says. “I used to be apprehensive about having this massive factor within the backyard.” However as soon as it was painted the identical shade as the home and the landscaper Pierre Clay Hanson linked the 2 buildings with a dry backyard, native shrubs and its personal basalt sculpture, the visitor home felt like dwelling.

In Marin County, ADUs might be as much as 800 sq. toes. However Heidi anticipated their ADU to be half that dimension, in gentle of what would work finest on their 6,300 sq. foot lot. It nonetheless features a full kitchen with dishwasher, washer and dryer, toilet and dwelling room-bedroom space. “If it was larger, perhaps I’d have had a separate bed room,” she notes. “However I could not match it in, so a studio was the way in which to go.”

Along with a settee that converts right into a queen-size mattress, Heidi has gained further dwelling house by putting two stools on the work aspect of the peninsula that separates the kitchen from the lounge. “That counter house turns into the desk and the eating desk,” she says. “You’ll be able to sit and watch TV, however these stools actually save house as a result of they pack away utterly.”

Though Heidi took a restrained strategy to the dimensions of the ADU, she let herself be amused when it got here to its inside house and styling. She selected art work and equipment with private ties, like massive market baskets she and her husband noticed on a visit to Kenya. She notes that they did not deliver again these handmade items – not straightforward to slot in a suitcase – however that she remembered the hampers and knew they’d match completely within the ADU’s peaked ceiling. “We needed the house to replicate our travels,” says Heidi. “Michael hung out in Africa with the Peace Corps, so a few of the photographs are his.” Heidi’s current journey to Pakistan and the portraits she took of Pakistani ladies are a few of the different black and white framed photographs.

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“When an architect will get to do one thing for themselves, it is going to get private,” she says. “It is type of an journey.” Heidi notes that her husband was pleased to go away the undertaking to the household skilled so she may make the house her personal. She wrapped the room in a impartial white palette and added texture with components such because the wooden plank ceiling. She launched shade and whimsy by way of items of furnishings just like the chairs designed by Patricia Urquiola, fitted with sunny yellow cloth.

Within the toilet, a mixture of 4 tiles from Heath Ceramics lend natural sample and shade to the spacious bathe. Cork pendant lights, which give flattering gentle, additionally lengthen that sense of non-public house and enjoyable.

Though the couple envisioned the ADU as a spot to go to household and buddies, when it was completed, a colleague of Heidi’s reached out. “She was on the lookout for momentary lodging, so I invited her to come back and see him,” says Heidi. “She cherished it and is staying till the top of the yr.” Since that’s, after all, one of many functions of the laws – to create extra housing – the couple are pleased that the ADU is working effectively for that goal. “We love having her and we hardly know she’s right here,” Heidi stories. “It is an incredible check.”

Initially appeared on Architectural Summary