The McGee Salvage House shows that healthy material choices need not be compromised in pursuit of energy efficiency. In addition, it’s forward looking design creates an entrée into its green credentials, revealing an emphasis on energy performance, environmental and health impacts of building materials, and water conservation.

The entire exterior is clad in salvaged and junked materials.  Over 100 salvaged car roofs cover the upper walls of this house.  The roofs were sawed out of grey cars left for parts in local junk yards.  The lower walls are clad in poplar bark, a waste product from the furniture industry of North Carolina.  The awnings are fabricated from junked Dodge Caravan side windows. 

The 1140 square foot, 2 bedroom house is small on the outside and big on the inside. The curved exterior allows more light to enter the south windows and more light to slide past into the neighbor’s yard.  It also creates the optical illusion of reduced size from the street.   Inside, the high ceilings, wide open spaces, and large windows and doors to the garden create a sense of spaciousness. 

It is located in the heart of one of Berkeley, California’s oldest residential neighborhoods, near the downtown core.  The house shares its 6500 sq. ft. site with an existing 1920’s bungalow and a young grove of 4 Redwoods. A fixture on Berkeley green home tours, it has been a popular addition to the neighborhood. In 2012 it received an AIA green design award.  

Construction by Wanaselja Construction
Photographs by Kiera Marie Condrey and Leger Wanaselja Architecture

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This house was designed and built in the tradition of California regionalism with flowing indoor/outdoor spaces, exposed materials, and expressive detailing.  The site for the Nabeshima/Kahle house, in the area destroyed by the Oakland firestorm, was especially challenging because of its small and triangular lot shape, its position in a tightly hemmed cul de sac, and its proximity to the Hayward Fault. 

The house responds to these constraints by nestling into the large corner of the triangular lot and opening to the East with a two-story, glass wall.  The transparent wall incorporates vertical lift doors at the large living area and barn doors at each bedroom to create direct connections with the garden from every main interior space. These fluid connections and the 26-foot high ceilings make the 1,600 square-foot house feel much larger than it actually is.

Construction by Wanaselja Construction
Photographs by Liz Rusby, Linda Svendsen, and Leger Wanaselja Architecture

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Situated in an idyllic location in western Marin County, this was an extensive remodel of a 1940s ranch house. The floor plan and the landscape were reworked to vastly improve the connections of the indoors to the site. New decks, stairs, doors, patios and bay windows take advantage of the spectacular views and provide easier access to the yard and the beach beyond.

The remodel included many energy efficiency upgrades and the new roof hosts a native garden and photovoltaic panels. In addition, the house showcases green materials and local craftsmanship including extensive use of salvaged and FSC sustainably harvested wood with low and non-toxic finishes, natural plaster walls, durable stone finishes, and bamboo cabinets.

Construction by Rich Anstey

Photographs by Emily Hagopian and Leger Wanaselja Architecture

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In this project, Leger Wanaselja Architecture remodeled and added to a 100 year old house and adjacent concrete block shop in Berkeley, California.  Raising up the two and a half story house and building a new commercial space below created a compound of two street level commercial spaces with two residential units above.  Rather than simply refurbishing the existing buildings, we salvaged them.  Recombining building elements with discarded auto parts and recycled materials, we created a modern, sun-filled architecture that uses a minimum of new material.  Several energy saving measures were included throughout the project that taken together dramatically improved energy performance.  Residences now use less than a third as much gas as those in similar buildings of this era. Cutting edge at the time of completion, this project won both national and local AIA awards for green design.

Construction by Wanaselja Construction
Photographs by Ethan Kaplan, Linda Svendsen, and Leger Wanaselja Architecture

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Sited in a picture-perfect location overlooking grassy hills and oak forests at the edge of state park land, this remodel transformed a run-down, energy-guzzling, ranch house.  The remodel included replacing everything from the studs up with durable, resource-efficient materials, improving the connection to the site and functionality of spaces, and adding a front porch.  New systems were added including roof rainwater collection and photovoltaic panels.  Taken together, these changes reduced energy use almost 9 fold, making the house virtually passive solar.     

Two 200-year old oak trees fell on the property during the design phase.  Not letting their demise go to waste, the trees were incorporated extensively into the design of the remodeled house. In fact, almost all of the finish wood in the project, including fencing, siding, cabinetry, and flooring is salvaged, totaling over 6000 board feet of wood. 

Construction by Suzanne Jones
On-site construction and specialties consulting by Wanaselja
Construction Photographs by Linda Svendsen and Leger Wanaselja Architecture

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Powerlight, Inc. now a subsidiary of Sunpower Corporation, was a leading designer, manufacturer and installer of photovoltaic integrated building systems. To accommodate this rapidly growing company, we designed three over-scaled, freestanding, sculptural elements that divide the large open office into smaller zones, and allow desks, filing cabinets and computers to move freely as staff and departments grow and change. All three large elements can be disassembled into smaller components to accommodate the moves of a young, growing company. The elements are also made with salvaged, low toxic or resource efficient materials and each reflects some aspect of the company's mission.

Photographs by Ethan Kaplan and Leger Wanaselja Architecture

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The shipping container is the standard for shipping goods from place to place.  Built to exacting specifications to withstand tremendous loads and, with refrigerated units, to maintain low internal temperatures efficiently, these vessels of commerce make excellent building blocks for architecture.  Even after many trips around the globe, they still easily meet or exceed the building codes for construction. As a net importer, the US ports are filled with them.

This house incorporates three insulated containers into the design of this airy yet compact 1350 square foot, three bedroom house. Two forty-foot containers are stacked on one side and a third is cut in half and stacked on the other creating protective walls for a two story atrium living room in the middle.  Bedrooms in the upper containers are given added width with bay windows. A stair and a bridge through the atrium connect the two upper containers to the space below.

Construction by Scott Bailey
Photographs by Jan Grygier and Leger Wanaselja Architecture
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Our goal for this 9-unit project was to use time tested methods to minimize energy use and to rely heavily on salvaged, recycled, and low-toxic finishes to rejuvenate a busy Berkeley street corner. We remodeled an existing turn of the century corner store and added a new mixed-use building next door.  Simple energy upgrades in the existing building improved energy performance by 280%.  Our passive solar design strategies helped the new building beat the state's energy efficiency requirements by almost 50%.
  
Heavy reliance on salvaged and recycled materials saved tremendous amounts of manufacturing energy and reduced overall environmental impacts. Re-purposed street signs and car parts add levity and intrigue to the city’s visual landscape.  The unusual juxtapositions hint at the more extensive but hidden green features. 

The project was enormously popular upon completion with more than 500 visitors at the two open houses for the sale of the new units.  The project also won AIA Best of the Bay and Acterra green design awards. 

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Made out of 100% salvaged car parts, this temporary shed is surprisingly strong and versatile. 

Quoting from an Inhabitat.com article:

"Leger Wanaselja Architecture built the wacky "Part-thenon" shed completely out of old car hoods and other parts. All over America junkyards are filled to the gills with old cars that do little more than blight the landscape. Keeping this in mind, longstanding green builders Cate Leger and Karl Wanaselja decided to make a cool structure entirely made of salvaged hoods, bonnets, and windshields. According to Karl, who did all of the construction work, this shed is surprisingly sturdy and water tight. It receives all of its support from the car parts and he even pre-tensioned the roof so that it acts structurally like a shallow dome, he told us in an email. Gaps in the car hood and trunk “shingles” – as he calls them – ensure that the shed is well-ventilated and the Mazda skylights allow all kinds of daylight to penetrate.

The Part-Thenon is a temporary structure with a tiny footprint. It doesn’t have a foundation since it was built over a gravel trench, and although the design couple briefly considered using their favorite project as a mini guest house, it retains its purpose as a storage shed. Albeit quirky, this is definitely one of the finest examples of adpative reuse we’ve seen in a while. Maybe it will start a trend?"

Construction by Karl Wanaselja
Photographs by Leger Wanaselja Architecture

Designed for an avid rock climber, this remodel excavates the center of this house to connect the many levels through a canyon-like space with undulating walls beneath a giant skylight. Bridges, stairs and a 30-foot climbing wall provide circulation through this three bedroom, 2-1/2 bath, 2000 square foot house and 800 square foot in-law unit.

Located in San Francisco, the project incorporates an array of green features including energy efficient design, recycled and salvaged materials, low-toxic and natural finishes, and photovoltaic panels. It is currently under construction.

Construction by Kirk Scott
On-site construction and specialties consulting by Wanaselja
Construction Photographs by Kirk Scott and Leger Wanaselja Architecture

The renovation of 9/9A Chattanooga Street showcases our early ideas in green real estate development.  We carefully renovated and restored this pre-1900, 5,200 square foot Victorian.  In the front of the house, the redesign focused on integrating the new work with the Victorian character of the building.  In the rear rooms, a more modern approach was taken--removing walls to create large, open, light-filled spaces, and in the upstairs unit, raising the ceiling to 20 feet.

The remodel maximizes the reuse of the building’s existing components and minimizes material removal.  To improve energy performance, double pane wood windows were used in all new locations and insulation was added where ever walls were opened.  New materials were selected for durability, sustainability and less toxicity like stone, FCS certified wood, cellulose insulation and VOC free paint.

Construction by Wanaselja Construction
Photographs by Leger Wanaselja Architecture and Reid Yalom

The Laguna Rehabilitation was a restoration of rundown and structurally unsound, 1950s, apartment building. The four unit, hillside building had been built with an undersized and poorly designed foundation and maintenance had been seriously neglected.  

The building was repaired using resource efficient materials, low or non toxic finishes, and salvaged and sustainably harvested materials.  In addition, the entire landscape was planted with native or edible plants. 

Construction by Wanaselja Construction
Photographs by Pamela Lucas

Working closely with Sunpower staff, this structure was conceived of as an outdoor classroom at Sunpower's new Richmond offices for training solar panel installers.

The building is unique structurally in that it relies largely on the structural integrity of 2 shipping containers for the foundation. No concrete footings were poured for this building.

Construction by Bay Area Builders
Photographs by Leger Wanaselja Architecture

This modest kitchen remodel reconfigures a relatively dark and cramped space into a sunfilled and modern kitchen.  Tall windows, a large skylight and big doors connect this space to a vibrant new permaculture garden in the rear.  The new design incorporates a previously unused 78 square foot side yard and turns a space wasting hallway into an efficient open-shelf pantry.

The defining move for this project is the wall to wall Kalwall skylight filled with Aerogel insulation.  The skylight floods the new breakfast space with daylight.  The Aerogel modulates both the sunlight and heat, eliminating glare and temperature extremes typically associated with skylights.  Restoring the kitchen’s dropped ceiling to its original 11 foot height allows for more vertical storage and also brings daylight deeper into the space.

DETAILS

Aside from limiting the addition and remodel, several other resource conserving measures were incorporated into the design and construction of this project including: 90% recycling of construction waste, the majority of new wood is either FSC or Salvaged, engineered lumber is used rather than solid sawn beams, and during deconstruction most elements were reused or sold.  A new deck extends no further into the rear yard than the old stair landing, yet significantly expands outdoor living space. 

To reduce waste in the future, the kitchen is designed for deconstruction.  All kitchen elements can be easily removed without damaging themselves or the building structure.  Daylight and privacy in the kitchen can be modified with a rolling salvaged-street-sign shutter at the main window. 

To protect indoor air quality, finishes are non-VOC paints, natural-oil based wood finishes and low-VOC caulk and construction and adhesives.  In addition, there are no combustion appliances inside. 

Construction by Jonathon Cunha
Photographs by Emily Hagopian and Erik Kolderup

Built on a steep slope in the east bay hills with views to the north and solar access to the south, we conceived of the house as a narrow band hugging the contours of the hill.  By narrowing the house to 20 feet and stringing it along the length of the slope, major engineering and changes in floor elevations were avoided.  The narrow floor plan also allows experience of both sun and views in all of the main rooms of the house.  Energy performance is further improved by thick, well-insulated walls and ceilings.  Strategically positioned skylights both help ventilate and daylight the house.  The roof over the master bedroom angles to the south, both punctuating the design and providing a future location for solar panels.   

In addition to reduced engineering, resource efficiency measures include, high-volume flyash concrete, blown-in cellulose insulation, FSC certified California Madrone flooring, salvaged wood and Richlite counters, low VOC paints and natural, linseed oil based finishes.  

Construction by Mueller Nichols
Photographs by Sarah Wauters

Working with a moderate climate, the plan of this new house maximizes the sense of connection to the beautiful sunny site. The main focal point of the first floor is a large south-facing patio which spills onto the grassy rear yard. Large barn type doors and windows and French doors connect all of the public rooms to this patio. 
The plan is also open, allowing public rooms to flow together, separated by ceiling height changes and greenery rather than walls. The master and children’s bedrooms are conceived of as separate smaller houses with their own porches, intersecting with the larger house volume. The second floor balcony looks dramatically over the public spaces below and adds to the sense of openness and connection in the house.

Construction by Ian MacLeod
Photographs by Leger Wanaselja Architecture and Ian MacLeod

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Leger Wanaselja Architecture reworked the inside of this 1940s ranch house and added on to create an efficient and open plan that actively engages the site.  The living room, dining room and kitchen now form one great room with private and outdoor spaces radiating off of it.  New porches and generous doors better connect the house to the sunny gardens. 

Materials and finishes were selected that were not only beautiful but resource efficient and low or non toxic.  The kitchen cabinets were custom built by a local Marin craftsman from his own salvaged Elm. In addition to many others, the remodel features an earthen floor, an earth wall, salvaged walnut benches and counters, and California Tanoak flooring.  Several energy and water saving upgrades were made. The house is also plumbed for greywater and the gutters are laid out for rainwater harvesting. Dwell Magazine featured the house on it's 2012 Marin County Homes Tour. 

Rich Anstey, General Contractor
Leger Wanaselja Architecture, Photographs

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Designed as a weekend and vacation retreat, the house offers the essentials of California living, big indoor/outdoor connections, a big deck and an easy flowing great room.  Located on a slight rise, with the main doors facing south, this 1000 sq. ft. house has a profound feeling of "prospect and refuge," a concept articulated by Frank Lloyd Wright to describe one of the archetypal elements of a good home. 

The feeling is further enhanced by a roof with a deep eave that slopes up to the south, a solid feeling concrete floor, and small windows to the north, east and west.  The orientation and design of this well insulated house also works well for energy performance.   Despite many 100+ degree days in the summer, the air conditioner is rarely used.  In the winter, most of the heat is provided by the sun.  The house scores a 9.9 out of 10 on EPA/DOE's National Energy Star Home Energy Yardstick. 

Construction by Greg Hoyt Construction
Photographs by Tedd Godager and Leger Wanaselja Architecture

A camera obscura is a darkened space with a pinhole aperture.  The light coming through the aperture creates an upside down image of the world outside on the opposite wall.  The phenomena was first discovered thousands of years ago.  However in renaissance Europe, through the use of lenses and mirrors, the concept was transformed into a device that could be used to better observe these images and copy them for the creation of art.  Later, photosensitive paper was developed that eliminated the need for hand tracing the image and what we know of today as the camera was born. 

As part of its move to its new location on the San Francisco waterfront, the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum, added several exhibits.  Working with museum staff and artists,  we developed a temporary structure to mount a camera obscura with a 360degree spinning range to go outside at the new location.  The shape is evocative of the surveying tents used in the 1800s in the American West, as camera obscuras were just being transformed into cameras and used for recording the vast American landscape.  

Construction by Wanaselja Construction
Assembly by the Exploratorium and Wanaselja Construction Photographs by Leger Wanaselja Architecture and Cris Benton

Like the galley of ship, this petite 5’ x 6’ kitchen functions expertly.  Carefully laid out, custom cabinets and a tall, counter depth refrigerator make use of every inch of space.  A spice cabinet is tucked into a half wall next to the stove.  The counters are salvaged oak and salvaged glass terrazzo.  New skylights flood the space with natural light, and walls were opened to connect the kitchen to surrounding rooms.

The new kitchen is part of larger remodel of this 2 bedroom, 830 square foot house, adding insulation and upgrading systems.  The front porch was also rebuilt.  The new porch columns were fabricated experimentally using fabric form work.  A salvaged redwood bench spans between.

Construction by Karl Wanaselja
Photographs by Richard Sargent and Linda Svendsen

This is our most recent development project, a remodel of a 4 unit building in Berkeley.  We used the project as an opportunity to continue our explorations with salvaged and renewable materials, incorporating cork siding, earth floors, earth plasters, and salvaged wood, street signs and car parts throughout. While remodeling, we performed a deep energy retrofit.  The property is now scoring in the top 1% nationally in energy use.  This year we will shift to 100% renewably sourced electricity making it a zero net energy (ZNE) apartment building. 

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Working with a visionary team of permaculturists, we developed this multifamily community of homes for what will become a 10 acre farm in El Sobrante.  The farm consists of several parcels strung together in a rapidly suburbanizing bedroom community of San Francisco.  The homes are designed to house the members of the group and their families, as well as the workers who run the farm. The buildings are nestled together close to the road on one of the most impacted parcels, leaving the remaining land open for growing food.  

The home closest to the road will double as the informal community center with a large round 2 story, living room, a wide, inviting, front porch, and a big kitchen.  The other homes are longer and narrower, following the contours as they step down the hillside.  All of them will be insulated with strawbales and rely heavily on nontoxic and salvaged building materials.  The homes are designed to be all electric and zero net energy, with passive solar orientation, solar hot water, and photovoltaics.  Each house will also have a 5000 gallon, rain cistern, and greywater directed to the landscape.  

The houses are also designed to be owner-builder friendly, and to embody the principal of “long life, loose fit” so they may be adapted and used differently as the community’s needs develop over time.

Ten containers are strung together on a knoll in this rolling, Oak-studded grassland near Livermore, California to create a new, fire-resistant, off-grid, environmentally-sensitive home.  The containers have been arranged in a composition intended to nestle gently into the site, and to work intimately with indoor/outdoor spaces to connect the house to its beautiful location.   

The owners have lived on the 100+ acre property for over 10 years, identifying important archeological remains and restoring sensitive native habitat.  This knoll was chosen because it avoids sensitive biological and archeological sites.  It also provides good solar access in the cool winters and cooling breezes in the hot summers.  The owner’s chose shipping containers because of their ability to use them to build the project themselves.  

With extra thick insulation, a super tight building envelope, appropriately sized and oriented windows and awnings, energy efficient appliances and light fixtures, the house is designed to be largely passive solar.  What energy is needed is provided with a solar hot water heater and solar electric panels. The house is all electric, and is expected to be net zero energy.  

The project relies on extensive use of salvaged, recycled and environmentally preferable materials.  One of the largest uses of recycled materials is the shell of the house itself, to be made of 10 used shipping containers.   Insulation is blown-in cellulose, a 100-percent recycled material, made from paper bags and cardboard and treated with low-toxic borate as a flame retardant.  By prioritizing recycled and salvaged materials, the overall carbon footprint of the building is reduced significantly at the outset of the project. 

Water conservation will also be key in this design.   New landscaping around the house will be drought tolerant and largely native, and zoned by water use.  Water will be collected from the roof into two, 5000 gallon tanks for irrigation during the dry months of the year.  All fixtures will be extremely low-flow. Grey water will be used for additional irrigation.

Like the bird its form resembles, this house will rest lightly in ecological terms on its remote southern Oregon site. The house will be entirely off the grid, heated only by the sun and a wood stove and powered by photovoltaics. Roof rainwater will be caught in cisterns around the house and slowly pumped up hill to a water tank behind the house to supplement well water.

The house will be built of straw bales and site milled trees. The 80-acre, semi-wooded site holds fir, pine, oak, and madrone that will be used for framing, sheathing, cabinetry and finish carpentry throughout the house. The curves were introduced at the rear of the bedroom and living room wings to take advantage of straw bale construction's improved structural performance in a rounded shape. The remainder of the walls will be square reflecting the rectilinear nature of wood framing. Taking advantage of this spectacularly beautiful site and the generally temperate climate, the house's south walls weave seamless connections to the outdoors.

This tiny, new cottage (also known as an accessory dwelling unit --ADU) got its name for the grand way it replaces the collapsing garage that once stood in the backyard. The owners capitalized on the theme adding bright, Indian inspired colors to the eaves and rafter tails.

The one bedroom, one bath, 440 square foot building backs up to the north property line, with windows opening to the south to maximize passive solar heating. A big corner window brings the garden into the living room. Another frameless corner window in the kitchen allows the last of the sun to illuminate the room in the evening and adds shelf space to the compact kitchen.

A curbless shower and wide doorways make the unit handicap accessible should the need at some point arise.

The cottage is all electric, saving the owners money on gas line installation costs and allowing for minimal future utility bills when they install solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on the main house. Even without PV panels, all electric operation lowers the building’s greenhouse gas emissions because of the high percentage of renewables and hydro power used to generate electricity in California. The building is also well insulated with blown in cellulose insulation in the walls and ceilings and rigid mineral wool under the floor slab.

Construction: Jennings McCann Construction

Photographs: Leger Wanaselja Architecture

This 1940s bungalow was given a much needed reworking which included opening and improving the floor plan, seismic strengthening, adding insulation and full electrification including 3.2kW of solar on the roof.