A Place to Call Home: Palouse Habitat For Humanity

Designing a home for the Palouse habitat for Humanity was a wonderful learning experience. There were so many new things about design that I learned.  It was my first time learning how to budget for a project and work with a partner in the design process. There were many things about the design process that we focused on.  It was amazing working with our knowledge of the site and previous habitat designs. Some of the things we took into account was that the sunlight was to be taken advantage of and that we should avoid putting windows and doors on the west side of the house.  The wind on this side is very strong and can create problems such as flooding, etc.

Unfortunately when designing the house there was no family chosen yet to live in the habitat house so we could not design it with a particular family in mind.  So as a result we used the beautiful Palouse, especially the wheat as an inspiration in our color palette and making everything warm yet neutral. In terms of sustainability, a product called PaperStone was used for the kitchen counters made from 100% recycled paper.  It was more expensive but there are trade offs that can be made to allow it to be able to be used. Also in the majority of the house besides the bathrooms and utility room we used a cork floor which added resilience and warmth but remained accessible to all users. As always, meeting ADA standards is more important than ever with the growing popularity of aging in place.  To accommodate for this need there are 3' wide door frames and 4' wide hallways.  You can find a 5' turn space in the master bathroom and kitchen.  In addition, the kitchen also has a 9" toe kick.  In the bathrooms there is adequate turn and transfer space.  This has been increased by the use of a wall mounted sink in the master bathroom and a pedestal sink in the other bathroom.

The thing I was most happy about in our design was the utility room and how it served as a transition space from the garage into the kitchen.  It made storage and organization easy as well as an effortless journey with groceries from the car to the kitchen.  On the other hand it was quite the challenge to work with 1,100 square feet but we learned to be creative and make functional, easy to live in space! When we first began to sketch out and divide up space my partner and I wanted to create a space that was not similar to other habitat floor plans we had seen before so our plan is not a complete rectangle we do have some bump-outs.  We realize this may be more challenging for volunteer labor but it is possible! Another feature I really enjoyed was "the light at the end of the hall".  This was the large window that was on the back wall of the hallway leading to the private spaces in the residence. Immediately upon opening the front door this window can be seen and it is very aesthetically pleasing and creates a great focal point. It is really great to see what I have learned from my textbooks being put into use in my own designs!