From the Ground Floor Up

Written by Sherry Moeller Photography by Alan Karchmer

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Janet Bloomberg and Richard Ortega-Loosle previously worked together as instructors of architecture at Catholic University before forming the firm, KUBE Architecture, which is built on the principles of sustainable design. “We believe every architect should be a green architect,” Bloomberg says. “There shouldn’t be a separation.”

“We push as hard and as far as we can with every client” to incorporate sustainable products, Loosle says, because of green components’ core values, but also because “they’re cool for residential work,” he says.

With their teaching backgrounds, they take a theoretical approach to design, not just an aesthetic one. “Every decision goes to support a big idea; everything forms a whole,” Loosle says. Decisions aren’t random; they support the key components – materials, light, and detailing – to a solution.

“We always experiment, take risks with spaces and materials,” Bloomberg says. “We don’t know what they’ll be on every project.” Bloomberg adds that they look at products for their possibilities, what they might offer as far as uniqueness and function.

“The idea of using new materials lends itself to contemporary, modern spaces,” Loosle says. They continually think of different ways to use traditional elements as well as research new products. “When we use traditional steel and hardwood, we use them in unexpected ways,” Loosle adds.

When deciding on materials and design, it’s important to the architects that the owners, contractors, and recent architecture graduates they hire are part of the team. Owners’ input is critical. “Like we ask our students to do, we create story lines to help us make decisions,” Loosle says. “We all challenge each other,” Bloomberg adds.

Read how renovations at three different residences – a basement co-op in the Dupont Circle area, the main floor of a single-family home in Georgetown, and the top suite of a Columbia Heights rowhouse – take us from the ground floor up to corroborate KUBE Architecture’s style of design.

No Barriers in Basement Co-op in Dupont Circle

After viewing the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Web site, Eric Lamar contacted four architectural firms with contemporary styles and chose Bloomberg and Loosle because they grasped the concepts he wanted to incorporate into his 900-square-foot lower level co-op in The Westmoreland Cooperative. A large open space with few or no walls that didn’t go to ceiling height and translucent panels for the bathroom were part of his plan. Concrete floors and gallery-style lighting for his collection of art, which includes Native American works by John Nieto and a Quebec City streetscape by Canadian artist Luc Deschamps, were important elements. “In each case, they took the basic concept and provided suggestions that improved the initial idea,” Lamar says, such as rerouting pipes where needed as well as exposing some for visual interest.

The architects moved the entry from a dark basement hallway to a new garden walkway by transforming an overgrown space at the back of the building. A cedar and steel fence opens to the path that leads to the now glass-enclosed porch. “Three curved walls were created to define the three major functions of living,” Bloomberg says. Wood was used in the sleeping area, while steel wraps the cooking spaces and plastic encloses the bathroom. “Plastic surrounds the bathroom so that it appears as a glowing translucent lantern in the space,” Loosle says.

“I like the way it turned out,” Lamar says. “It’s comfortable, funky, very private, and it has great light on three-and-a-half sides.”

Main Floor Reconnect in Georgetown

With a dark and divided first floor in their Georgetown residence, homeowners Bill Bravman and Wendy Lynch wanted to open things up but not lose the shadows of the trees or light that already existed. Lynch’s general thought was to incorporate simple lines that didn’t compete with one another, thus breaking up the spaces less with lines than with color or texture.

Loosle and Bloomberg say that the main floor was “clogged” in the middle so they offered three schemes of which the owners selected one that they modified. The architects began by reconfiguring the entrance and directing it into the living room. The previous entry became the dining room. The former closed-off kitchen now opens to the gathering areas with a new open riser staircase maintaining the visual connection to the outside, both in the front and back. A series of translucent 3form screens made from recycled plastic ties the spatial sequence of rooms together starting with the entry courtyard where slatted screens parallel the lines of the interior’s floating staircase.

KUBE’s Curves

Concerned about sound echoing in a relatively open main floor, the owners considered cork flooring for its sound-absorbing potential, but went with another renewable floor type – bamboo in a deep color. “We were really open to the possibilities of unusual, eco-friendly materials that have visual or textural interest and sturdy qualities,” Lynch says. “We were more interested in strong design” and surfaces that hide fingerprints. “Rich really made the spaces not just kid safe, but fun and kid inviting,” Bravman adds.

“Rich likes things that slide past where you think they’re going to end,” Lynch says, such as the platform steps that meet built-ins, one maple tread that extends through an opening to create a shelf in the dining room, and the entry courtyard’s bench that continues on the inside along a dining room wall.

“We semi-splurged on a few things, but overall encouraged them to think about how they could use inexpensive materials innovatively,” Bravman says, which is why they decided to use polished Viroc as an interior material for the staircase landing.

Full of Life

“The owners desired a modern loft-like living space with as few interior dividing walls as possible, yet still maintaining the programmatic sense of each room,” Loosle says.

For Bravman and Lynch’s son Milo, there’s nothing better than his secret passageway created by the renovation. From the upper level laundry room, a child-size opening leads into a playroom hidden behind movable shelves in his bedroom. For Lynch, the colors, light, and shadows remain her focus in the spaces. “The home feels relaxing with really clean lines,” Bravman adds. “It’s lively to me in many ways.”

“We encouraged Rich and Janet to play to what we saw as a strength of their portfolio work,” Bravman says, which is “a clean, crisp, rigorous aesthetic that could nevertheless be warm and playful, comfortable to live with in a casual manner.”

Raising the Roof of a Columbia Heights Rowhouse

Owners of a Columbia Heights rowhouse, Tracey Meikle and Nicole van Gilder, initially interviewed Bloomberg after reviewing her AIA portfolio. “We brought along images of work that we loved and the three of us talked with shared excitement about how we could incorporate ideas into our project,” Meikle says. “It was that collaborative style that really drew us to Janet.”

Once they began the project later on, Bloomberg and Loosle had joined forces and collaborated on the design. Wanting to finish the attic but keep the roofline in tune with the rest of the rowhouses on the street, the owners were careful to incorporate the right design and materials along the facade. “You can make a statement out of a simple material,” Bloomberg says. In addition, KUBE Architecture made sure the owners like the sound of rain before they installed the metal roof.

Inside, the owners turned to the architects to suggest materials, including standard pine beams that they hand selected for the 12’ ceiling. They wanted the design to be modern, but not in a cold way. “We love the fact that it’s open. It has a soothing, grounding feel to it,” Meikle adds. “Warm and cool materials were mixed in order to create a modern, yet comfortable atmosphere,” Bloomberg says.

“The steel and wood stair acts as a vertical skewer tying together all three floors of the house,” Loosle says. “The vertical railing supports run from the first floor to the third floor ceiling, and the horizontal steel pickets wind around the supports continuously, never touching the ground.” The architects look for opportunities to try new things when renovating or adding onto a space, such as keeping beams or decorative steel exposed as well as using unique materials like the weatherproof and UV-resistant Parklex panel that goes from inside the suite at the top of the staircase to outside onto the deck. Because this is a converted attic space, the main goal was to keep the spaces bright. One major accent color ties all the spaces together with the materials themselves contributing to the color schemes in all their projects.

In Retrospect

“Each project is different,” Bloomberg says, including their lobby design at the Metropolitan Home Design House in The Washington Design Center last year. They’re happy to report that the recyclable materials used to create the entryway were removed and stored for repurposing in a new artist’s housing project in Hyattsville, MD.

“We’re different than many other modern architects in that we don’t use all white and stainless … we create warm modernism,” Loosle says, by incorporating color and texture with the materials they use. They like to weave old with new, too. “We often look to modern European architecture for inspiration,” Bloomberg adds.

KUBE Architecture goes to every length and level to design fresh, functional, and sustainable spaces for its clients.