Page 66 - Fall 2019

Side view of
the Grass House.

Washington
Washington

at Home
at Home

DC-Area Houses Exude Elegance

Photo © Ty Cole
and Innovation by G. Martin Moeller, Jr., Assoc. AIA

Front façade of the Grass House. Photo © Ty Cole

Chapter Design Award in Architecture/ The modest scale of the Grass House, a new accessory structure
Washingtonian Residential Design Award built behind an existing Victorian house in Anacostia DC, belies its
subversive architectural intent. Conceived as a rebuke to the decrepit,
The Grass House large-scale public housing projects that are all too common in its
Washington, DC neighborhood, the project exploits recent changes to DC’s zoning
code, which now allows such structures as a matter of right in most
bld.us residential areas, to demonstrate the potential of small-scale dwelling
units to help address the city’s housing crunch. The project also
Structural Engineers: JZ Engineering “proposes a contextual and healthy alternative to standard stick-
LEED Consultants: Steven Winter Associates frame construction,” according to the architects at bld.us, and is the
General Contractor: Artwork first code-compliant bamboo-framed building on the East Coast.

64 WASHINGTON AT HOME