Residential Design

Case Study: Academy Highlands by Risa Boyer Architecture

Designing a full-time residence for retirees can be particularly rewarding for architects. By the time most clients reach that milestone, their habits and hobbies are well formed, and they know exactly what they want from their home. Satisfaction can come from taking the design in unusual directions, because the brief is typically liberated from formulas for bedroom count, private and public zones, and even resale value.

Risa Boyer’s older clients found their forever homeplace about 10 minutes from downtown Bellingham, in the hills overlooking Lake Whatcom. They were living in Portland and had come up empty in their search for a property that felt remote but was close to civilization. While visiting Bellingham they fell in love with this 20-acre site, about an hour and a half from Seattle and 30 minutes from Vancouver, British Columbia. “They were taken with the amazing view and being surrounded by trees,” says Risa, AIA.

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