The Danger Dog House began with an unusual and refreshing brief: two physicians, a busy family, and an unambiguous directive to be bold. The clients arrived not with a list of compromises but with a genuine appetite for both extremes, a home that could be quiet, spare, and rigorously minimal, while also opening up to reveal a quirky, colorful, thoroughly lived-in life. The challenge was to hold both without apology.

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The residence is organized as a composition of three stacked volumes, each distinct in material and purpose. The garage and a recreation room are buried into the hillside, accessible from the lower street level through obscured glass and steel doors that reveal little of what lies above. The main living level sits atop a concrete plinth as a fully transparent glass box, open to the landscape and light on all sides, containing the social spaces of the home with a lightness that belies its confidence. Above it, a second volume clad in concrete panels is set at a deliberate angle to the floor below, housing the private spaces of the home and commanding sweeping views across Kirkland and Lake Washington beyond.

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The tension between the precision of the architecture and the exuberance of the family who inhabits it is not a contradiction. It is the point.

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Location: Kirkland, Washington

Size: 3,600 SF

Status: Completed 2007

Architecture: Jill Lewis Architecture with Coop 15 Architects

Landscape Architect: Linda Attaway

Contractor: McKinstry Construction

Photography: Lara Swimmer