Swoop ADU

The Swoop ADU project reflects the owner’s desire to age on the property she’s lived on for 40 years, while also passing the main home down to her daughter & son-in-law. The project provides a multitude of futures for the owner and her family to not only age in place, but also expand their family together on one property through an attached ADU onto the existing home.

Aesthetic characteristics of the split-level suburban home typology was a starting point in the design research. The main home’s particular style of split-level, which became widespread in the 1960s across the nation, typically features a facade composed of two materials: stucco or brick veneer for the lower datum, and siding, usually wood or composite materials, for the upper portion. This dual-material approach often creates a pronounced horizontal line that marks the change in materials. In the Swoop ADU, we reinterpreted this horizontal line to highlight both the front and back entries to the ADU, as well as other openings on the facade. This playful reinterpretation of a commonly observed feature in the widespread suburban house typology renders the ADU both familiar and novel within its context.