A Pretty Good House

Working with Brown Dog Properties, we designed two California-inspired modern farmhouses in the Tufts area of Medford, Massachusetts.

The streamlined exterior features clapboard and board and batten siding, along with a shou sugi ban entry with ipe decking and a custom metal powder-coated railing. Inside, an open plan reflects the same materials. A horizontally wrapped ipe fireplace adds warmth to the limited hard finish palette. Other contemporary elements like a waterfall-edge island, hex tiles and streamlined fixtures round out the interior spaces. A back deck also features ipe and powder-coating.   

These homes were the first of their kinds for Medford, designed to be sustainable, net-zero ready homes offering years of comfort and peace of mind for the new owners. The homes featured many green building elements including triple paned, European style LOGIC windows, SIGA house enclosure and sealing products, double-studded wall cavities creating a vast cavity for insulation, Zehnder German-made ERVs for whole house air-exchange, all-electric heat pump heating and cooling.

An overarching goal was to achieve the lowest possible energy usage day to day. These homes reached very near Passive House standards for air exchange and followed The Pretty Good House standards.