NOV/DEC 2008

by Joshua Bodwell
Photography James R. Salomon

A Portland architect goes green in his own city loft

Architects are actors. They spend weeks, months, and even years inhabiting their clients’ lives so they might better understand how a home should be designed. During the process, however, the architect constantly slips out of that actor’s skin and makes recommendations on a project’s nuts and bolts, such as what materials to use and why—the architect, in other words, must also assert a bit of his or her own vision.

So what happens when a successful architect becomes his own client?

For Richard Renner, of Portland-based Richard Renner Architects, the answer was simple: “I wanted to practice what I have been preaching.”

Renner has long advocated the practicalities of smaller buildings, renewable materials, adaptive reuse, and energy efficiency. In short, he views “going green” as a common-sense approach to building—not simply the movement du jour. For Renner, sustainable, environmentally sound design is merely a natural, evolutionary—and inevitable—response to the world’s growing challenges. As a result, his commitment to the principles of green design has been far reaching. For example, the Freeport home Renner collaborated on last year with Wright-Ryan Construction was not only the first home in the northeast to receive the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating—Platinum—it was also just the third home in the entire country to receive this distinction.

In January of this year, the 3,000-square-foot, two-story brick building in Portland that Renner recently converted into a combination work and living space—offices for his architecture firm and a loft for himself and his wife—also received a Platinum LEED certification.

Renner had been living on Portland’s West End for many years, while renting offices on Pleasant Street at the outer edge of the city’s Old Port district. A couple years ago, the architect discovered a peculiar little brick building for sale on a corner lot just down the street from his office. The building—which had once housed a vintage-clothing store in the basement and a drafty, poorly conceived living space above—was derelict and in disrepair. But where others saw little potential, Renner saw possibility—reuse and mixed-use, after all, are both prized tenets of green design.

“This building was sort of the ugly duckling of the street,” Renner remembers with the glimmer of a smile. “People come and see the loft now and they ask us, ‘How did you ever know that you could do something with this place?’ But I just saw that it had potential.”

One of the major reasons Renner felt confident that he could take an urban building and transform it into a warm, appealing living space was his wife, the graphic designer Janet Friskey. The couple’s shared vision and collaboration led to a minimalist loft that feels both inviting and functional. “The end result is contemporary, but it’s not cold,” says Renner succinctly.

The loft is outfitted with steel staircases and handrails, and classic modern furniture is mixed with quirky antiques. Sleek silver and glass sculptural decorations are balanced by faux-antique toy sculptures by Portland artist Randy Regier. A stunning photography collection, including many of Renner’s own entrancing Polaroid transfers, adorn the walls.

“We definitely share a design vocabulary,” says Friskey of the couple’s collaboration, “but we also come at things from different angles.”

For her part, Friskey gives Renner kudos for envisioning the loft’s spatial planning. “Nothing is frivolous in his designs,” she says admiringly, noting the dining room sideboard, which was built on casters and can roll out from its nook beneath the stairs to become a buffet for serving dinner guests.

Renner credits Friskey with giving the home, among other things, its heart: color. “That is all her gift,” he says.

Renner’s first big design gesture was relocating the front door around the corner from the office entrance to create an additional layer of separation between work and life. At the top of an atrium-like entryway is a narrow half-wall painted warm orange. The wall, which is loaded with storage space on its backside, greets visitors as they enter the home and serves as a visual buffer for the loft’s open kitchen (built by Wright-Ryan, a regular Renner collaborator). The orange cube is a tangible example of the Renner-Friskey partnership: aesthetically striking and eminently functional.

When it comes to the principles of green design, the kitchen is a LEED dream. It features high-efficiency appliances, formaldehyde-free plywood in the cabinet frames, bamboo plywood on the cabinet doors, recycled glass tiles for the backsplash, and PaperStone countertops made from cellulose fiber and a non-petroleum resin.

This philosophy of efficiency runs throughout the home. Wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was used for framing and flooring throughout. Radiant heating was installed, as was a heat-recovery ventilation system and a photovoltaic array on the rooftop. Renner found that the new triple-glazed windows he used to reduce overall energy consumption provided an additional benefit for city living: “It was a nice surprise when we discovered how quiet the windows made the loft,” he says.

Because the home is situated on a corner lot with one side flush against an adjoining building, Renner intentionally located the main living spaces along the street-facing sides to bring in as much sunlight as possible to warm and brighten the rooms. Sunlight even fills the bathroom at the space’s interior via light tubes that stretch up to the home’s roof, which is vegetated with sedums to, among other things, reduce stormwater runoff.

“The quality of light in this space is so energizing that it’s hard to believe you’re in the city,” says Friskey effusively. She took advantage of the great light by filling the high-ceilinged space with a neutral palette and then adding vivid punctuations of color. “Because you can see nearly the entire space at once,” says Friskey, “I wanted to create areas of interest that would draw the eye but never stop it.”

Her artistic touch also plays subtle design elements off one another. The sofa pillows feature bright circular patterns that mirror the repeating circles that have been cut out of sheets of metal used throughout the home. “You don’t walk in here and say, ‘Wow, everything goes together,’” Friskey notes. “But I do think you feel a harmony.”

Renner’s and Friskey’s design restraint—one of the hardest aesthetics of all to achieve—is the project’s prime exemplar.

“The edited quality of living here is very relaxing,” says Friskey. “Though it is highly designed and we live somewhat minimally, this house is full of all the things we need and a few of the things we love.”

Renner’s organizing scheme for the loft was the perfect canvas for Friskey’s interior designs—together, they have integrated the best of green design with the amenities of comfortable living.

“I had this notion,” says Renner, “and this is not somehow unique to me, but I knew that a level of environmental responsibility could go hand in hand with elegant, clean, sophisticated design.”