Vazquez Family House
This project is designed for a family including eight brothers who own two restaurants in nearby Guerneville, California. One restaurant is open for breakfast until lunch, the other lunch until dinner. So the house is designed with different time schedules in mind. Parking is at a minimum for the brothers to share their rides.
Obviously, this format could easily become a residential duplex. This akin to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) program. ADUs have been known by many names: “Granny Units”, “In Law Units”, Secondary Units, etc. ADUs are an innovative, affordable, effective option for adding much needed (lower cost) housing in California.
In this case, the first savings is the down hill sloping site which is obviously less costly than a level lot in the same area. Then to take advantabge of the verttical space is to place a two storied housing structure that appears as only one story from the frontage street.
Further savings is that the two dwelling uits are occupying one lot. Construction costs are futher reduces per dwelling: one roof, one foundation.
The architect has designed, engineered, and constructed many downhill as well as uphill sloping home sites in Southern California.
The key is to emply concrete piers (sometimes friction ppiles) with grade beam layout. Note that the grade beams need only to penetrate the sloping earth approximately six inches. The rest is formed above grade, avoiding excessive digging and earth removal. This allows for back filling of dirt between the grade beams to lessen the amount of dirt to be removed from the site. Many of these types of sites provide a wonderful view of the surrounding area as is the case here.