The Casita model of DADU from Johnston Architects is indicative of how livable detached accessory dwelling units can be when designed with flair.
Denver, CO-based contemporary architecture firm Shape Architecture takes pride in designing homes that offer reduced square footage, smaller carbon footprints and lowered cost, yet meet clients’ needs for space. Homes include features highly familiar to Japanese designers, including sliding walls able to convert living rooms into guest bedrooms or family rooms into playrooms. Shape Architecture crafted one of Seattle’s 10 pre-approved DADU designs and has built a number of DADUs across the country, some overcoming incredibly limited space parameters. In a prepared statement, the firm noted its ADU design experience has evolved into helping clients interested in multi-generational “family compounds” featuring attached or detached accessories.
Rising mortgage rates mean fewer would-be buyers can afford first homes. That takes them out of the land of the American Dream, and places them squarely, and possibly interminably, back in renting country. These folks, who otherwise would have left the renting population, are instead adding to the cohort.
Their increased demand is helping propel monthly rents northward. Everywhere, it seems, the affordable housing crisis is growing, and there exists no indication it will be reversed or even slowed anytime soon.If there are solutions to the crisis, one may be found in the concept of the Detached Accessory Dwelling Unit, or DADU. Known in some places as granny flats or coach houses, these compact dwellings are legally permitted on parcels of existing homes, they provide additional housing options to those who otherwise likely wouldn’t have hope of finding one. And for that reason, many municipalities are making way for them. Seattle’s ADUniverse website is one example of how accepting they’ve become.