Journal · Field notes from the studio
Writing, slowly, about a slow craft.
- N°08Project · March 2025
Winner Creek Rainforest Home — completed.
The house at Winner Creek Trail is finished. Notes on building in Girdwood's old-growth Sitka spruce forest — tree preservation, light quality, and why the sunset view required a very specific roof angle.
- N°07Post-Occupancy · February 2025
Nordic Spa — one year of thermal cycling.
Alaska's first Nordic Spa at Alyeska Resort has completed a full winter season. What the pool enclosure taught us about condensation management, and what we'd detail differently.
- N°06Material · November 2024
On shou sugi ban in a maritime climate.
Charred larch holds up beautifully in interior Alaska. On the coast, the salt fog is a different conversation. A small empirical study.
- N°05Project · September 2024
Girdwood Ski Cabin — spaciousness in a smaller footprint.
A new ski cabin in Girdwood designed to feel generous despite its modest square footage. The section strategy, the storage decisions, and the single detail that made the whole thing work.
- N°04Position · July 2024
Why we don't draw the cabin you saw on Pinterest.
A short essay on regional honesty, and why so much of what gets built in Alaska is borrowed from places with very different physics.
- N°03Practice · May 2024
Four projects a year. Here's the math.
We've held the studio at a deliberate size for twenty years. A transparent look at how that affects fees, timelines, and outcomes.
- N°02Site · March 2024
Hilltop home in Homer — walking the site at low tide.
The Homer site drops 200 feet from the ridge to the water. Field notes from six visits across two seasons, and how the tidal cycle determined where we put the main entry.
- N°01Detail · January 2024
Notes on the rainscreen, after a winter of -38°F.
We re-detailed our standard vented rainscreen after a Girdwood project spent forty consecutive nights below zero. What we changed, and what we left alone.
Older entries — archive in preparation