The River Bend Residence by Pb Elemental Architecture

The River Bend residence is designed by Seattle based Pb Elemental Architecture. The residence sits at the base of the Cascades in a heavily forested site on the bank of the Snoqualmie River. The home balances the client’s desire for privacy, while embracing nature. Many challenges faced the design and construction of this home low budget, sustainable desires, but most of all schedule. The client, a young family of four, located the site two weeks before legislation would change setbacks and make the site unbuildable.

The challenge was to design and submit a sustainable home that would accommodate their existing family and could later be added on to as their family grew, before the change in legislation. The second challenge was accommodating the existing setbacks, protected old growth trees, septic drain fields, and the buildings proposed/future footprint. A seemingly simple bar diagram formulated the initial concept, living/entertaining on the ground floor, private bedrooms on the upper floor. In the future as the clients family grow a third bar was designed to bridge over the living room.

Conceived as three masses (private, living, utilitarian) and three materials (wood, concrete/ metal), the River Bend Residence offers a low mantainence exterior and naturally light interior. The river can be heard from the 2400 sqft of exterior decks, while viewed from the upper deck.