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Case Study Video
Case Study Video Transcript
Rachel Hodgdon, Homeowner: Marisa and I were thinking about a second home outside of New York City, and this site in particular is really special because it has so much nature. There are trees all around us, but we're just steps away from the ocean, as well. So the breezes are incredible and every season is a totally different view outside of the window.
Cape Cod is such a beautiful, peaceful, amazing place to be. My parents were already here on Cape Cod, but the home that they were living in didn't have a first-floor bedroom and they needed to think about getting into a space that would allow them to age in place. And we started to conceive of this idea of a multi-generational home that would be one home from the outside, but two homes on the inside.
Johanna Reed Melvin, Architect, Neubauer Ennis Architects: From the beginning, the clients had a very clear program of how they wanted to live in the home. They wanted to build a home that could feel like it was one big house, share a front door, shared communal spaces, but they also wanted something that could create privacy for the different parts of their family.
Hodgdon: It's been so incredible, especially now that we have a son, to be living in this multi-generational context. It gives us extra support because my wife and I both work and work pretty long hours. But more importantly, it's just the joy of being together as a family.
Designing a home that is essentially two in one allowed us to be really efficient with our choices. For instance, we didn't need two big kitchens. We just needed one kitchen that was large enough for entertaining and then a small kitchen that could get us by in our day-to-day activities.
My father and I both have worked in sustainability in the environment for our entire careers, and I'm the president and CEO of the International WELL Building Institute. The WELL for Residential certification consists of a whole series of options that are strategies for driving healthier living and spaces that allow us to live our best lives. We organize the standard into 10 concepts, ranging from air quality and water quality, to nourishment, to mental health and well-being, and community connectivity. And we pursued a broad range of strategies in all of those categories.
Reed Melvin: We made a commitment early on in this project to have a combustion-free interior environment, and so there's no fireplace, there's no gas range, and part of that was in seeking a WELL certification, the indoor air quality was just as important as the sustainability and environmental impact of the home. In order to maintain the indoor air quality and bring in fresh air throughout the seasons, we have an ERV system that breathes for the house in a controlled way and brings in conditioned, filtered air. The desire for a WELL-certified home guided our decision to Marvin Modern, because we wanted to create a strong connection between the inside and the outside. And the clients, in particular, were very drawn to the clean lines of the Marvin Modern profile, and we highlighted that with the way that we framed the windows themselves.
One of the wonderful things about Marvin Modern is that the operable windows and the direct glaze windows have the same profile, and so they sit together really quietly, and there's less indication of what's operable versus not operable. Most of the windows in this home are operable so that we have access to bringing in fresh air and experiencing the outside. And so we wanted you to be able to open the windows whenever inspired to do so.
Hodgdon: When it comes to designing a healthy home, windows play an extraordinarily important role. They support thermal comfort and acoustic comfort. They're an important part of meeting your energy efficiency goals. They provide a sense of place, access to the outdoors. They allow for the daylight that helps improve everything from mood and focus to a better night's sleep.
Reed Melvin: Our goal for this home was for it to be net-zero or net positive, and for us, that means an incredibly robust exterior envelope with carbon sequestering insulation. So, we specify triple-pane windows on all of our new construction homes, because that is a critical part of the overall envelope that we've designed. That creates an interior environment that requires very little energy to heat and cool it, and then add solar, so that you have an additional power source that you're generating.
Hodgdon: We took a family- and design-team excursion to Marvin at 7 Tide. It allowed us to get a sense of what the multi-slide doors would look and feel like, and we got to go into the room that allows you to project your windows onto the wall. And I think that was the first time that we really got a sense of the height and the scale of the windows and just how expansive all of that was going to feel. When you're looking at architectural plans, it's really hard to get that sense, so actually being in a space where it was mocked up gave us a lot of confidence that we were going to have enough transparency within our primary living spaces.
Sue Shockley, Senior Brand Ambassador, Marvin at 7 Tide: What we love doing at Marvin at 7 Tide is helping homeowners understand their windows and doors with their project partners by exploring the possibilities, talking through the design details, helping them to see it is really when the light goes off. And then course, we have the resource area, and that's where we can take out all the finishes. So, in this home, the homeowners opted for the Marvin Modern collection in an ebony interior finish.
Hodgdon: Multi-generational living is on the rise here in the United States, and in many ways it's a return to the way that we used to live. We know that one of the greatest predictors of your lifespan is the connectivity that you have to family, to friends, and to the community at large. People who are living in multi-generational settings tend to be more connected, to be happier, and to live healthier and more fruitful lives.
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