By Jesse Oona Nickerson, LEED AP

In the West-facing terrace, ZDS chose to widen the original space to create an outdoor living room.  From here the family can entertain, dine, play, and watch the children in the pool, or in the garden below, while taking in the beauty of the water and the carefully landscaped garden.

ZDS clad the floor with a light neutral porcelain tile with a slight texture and designed a long bench of darkened steel, which houses brown velvet cushions that can be stored in an inside compartment.  Two cubic corners of cast concrete at each end match the dark brown hue of the metal.  This long bench, which runs the perimeter of the terrace, is secured by a wooden ledge of varying depth.  Conceived of with the planter below, together both elements form a perfect rectangle.

Spanning the length of the terrace, a slightly lowered wooden soffit pulls the design together.  The lighting is housed on a sliding track to afford different settings.  The fixtures, selected from Seattle based Resolute lighting, are the poetic Bloom and the Precious rigid stem pendants.

The large scale of the Bloom fixture beautifully and organically adds to the terrace.  The golden glow emanating from this flower-like pendant – made up of 12 leaves of fabric enclosed in a resin – is seen through the trees on the boat dock below.  The soffit also houses infrared heat panels, so the homeowners can enjoy their outdoor terrace, even on a chilly evening, as they sip a drink and seep in the sunset.

By Jesse Oona Nickerson, LEED AP

The owners of the Bellevue house have been long-time clients.  They first approached ZDS for a kitchen remodel to better adapt to their current lifestyle and habits.  Later, they requested a remodel for their informal dining area, family room, outdoor terrace, and garden landscaping.  The house, which rests on a beautifully tended piece of land overlooking the water and boat dock, stands out for its crafted modern sensitivity and relation to the landscape.  The owners wanted to remodel their most lived in and public areas to add comfort and meet the needs of children. 

In the kitchen ZDS created an island counter with cook-top, cabinets, and shelving and also added a waist high, granite-top bar peninsula.  The organic quality of the space allows for cooking and conversation, while the parents can see the children at play in the family room beyond.  ZDS completely re-gutted the former kitchen to adapt to the current lifestyle and habits.  They redesigned a new kitchen with cabinets and shelving by IsGood Woodworks.

In creating an informal dining area, ZDS integrated the owners’ table and chairs into the remodel.  An apple green colored wall, with a crisp pale yellow table, and lighter green chairs, creates a natural transition through the full-height windows to the trees and water outside.

Above the peninsula and in the dining area, ZDS used the seamed cast glass pendants designed by Omer Arbel and produced by Bocci Ball.  These low voltage lights can be used as singular elements or as groups.  Three single pendants hang above the peninsula, whereas ZDS designed a floating canopy with an evocative cluster of Bocci pendant spheres for the dining area.

In the family room, ZDS designed shelving and a cabinet system that was built by Kerf Design – a Seattle based, environmentally conscious company.  These simple yet modern black limba wood cabinets, detailed in an exquisite and playful way, house many toys, office material, a printer, and stereo.  A work-post pivots out from inside the cabinets to easily operate audio-visuals and serve as a work and play area.

Next to the cabinets, ZDS designed a series of blackened steel panels that act as a backdrop to a flat screen TV.  The black screen, once turned off, disappears against the texture of the dark panels.   When it is turned on, it resembles a vibrant painting against its setting.  A horizontal slit in the wall above the TV completes this corner. The rich yellow-gold hue of Peter David art glass lights up the otherwise dark tones.

Within one sweeping motion – from kitchen, dining area, and family room – the design has been addressed in a functional way.  By accentuating the separate character of each environment, the whole results in a sensual and complex space within modern guidelines.

• Bocci Ball Post
• Bocci Ball
• Kerf Design
• Peter David

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By Jesse Oona Nickerson, LEED AP

ZDS Architects have come to love light fixtures from Resolute, a Seattle-based lighting company.  Local and sustainable, they are attentive to minimize waste by implementing only a fixed number of hardware parts into their designs.  Their creative light fixtures are featured in ZDS’s Terrace Home and the Washington Wellness Institute.  

In the minimal and yet rich terrace the Bloom Pendant and Precious Pendant glass fixtures are customized to run along a Juno track.  The lights slide along the track to adapt to different moods, from an elegant dinner party, a social event, or solitary reading.

The Precious Pendant lights, with their rigid stems fit above the chaises lounges.  The homeowner loved these opal white glass lights, which hang from aircraft cable under a satin nickel finish canopy, from the minute she saw them.  

The Bloom light fixture, which can be set up in various positions, ranges from the more vertical and bulb-resembling to its fullest flower form.  The fixture consists of a floating pendant made up of 12” leaves of a Knoll textile called Imago that are tabbed onto two die-cast aluminum spiders and suspended by three stainless steel aircraft cables.  The Allure Ginseng fabric chosen from the available Knoll fabrics, which is sandwiched between the resin, adds a beautiful color and rich texture to the environment.  Suzanne describes how she was simply ‘blown away’ by the scale and the organic yet modern quality of this fixture, which was perfect for the long wooden soffit in the Terrace Home.  It’s a simple but poetic fixture, which adds complexity to the space without feeling heavy or fussy.

In the Washington Welllness Institute the pendant once again completes the reception space by adding a textured and flowing feeling to the minimal and calm space.   For details on this project, see: Washington Wellness Institute.