There is a house in Southeast Portland, OR with an architectural element that is sure to raise a few eyebrows because stylistically, it resembles one.
Dubbed the ‘Eyebrow House’ by its owner, architect Edgar Papazian of Doon Architecture LLC, the steel arches were added during renovation to expand the second floor, which initially was a small, tube-like shaped attic/storage space.
What was Papzian’s inspiration and thought process in designing his ‘Eyebrow House’? He explains:
After the renovation, what exists on the second level that wasn’t there before? There are two new bedrooms (one master – rear and one smaller one -front), as well as a new, second bathroom.
How did you come up with the concept to utilize steel arches to achieve your objective?The idea sprang from sketches I made of the house when we first saw it. The architectural problem is one of adding dormers to a small gable-roof house, and how to do so without making the house look top-heavy [which would occur with] traditional stick-built construction. The curvature is something I came up with to make the house appear more visually streamlined and yet have livable, architectural-character space on the second level. We also were attempting to make a better visual connection from the house interior to the rear of the property through large areas of glazing. The curves I wanted were a theme that carried through a lot of the millwork and choice of plumbing fixtures. I had never used these arches before, although I’d seen them used in instances other than typical Quonset hut buildings—once at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York for a sound installation and then in Architectural Record for [Hodgdon Powder’s] office building in the Midwest that’s on the SteelMaster Buildings’ website.
How did the use of the arches add to your vision for the ultimate renovation of the house?I had looked at other types of material that would give me the curvature such as glulam beams, but the [SteelMaster] arches were visually interesting and cost-effective. I was able to work with SteelMaster to get the curvatures I required both by code and visual proportion, within strict tolerances. By exposing them on the inside and building an insulatable shell around them (stuffed with spray foam insulation getting us our code-mandated R-value), we get a cool galvanized interior finish that required no further finishing and gives an industrial, bright feel. I specified triple-glazed arch-top metal extrusion windows to complement the aesthetic of the arches, on both the front and rear facades.
How would you classify the construction process of putting the arches into place? After the minor ordeal of getting the material off the truck and onto the second level of the house and a bit of head-scratching about how the pieces were marked (and some screw-ups in initial assembly that resulted in bizarre-looking curves), my contractor figured it out, and the arches were up essentially within a day or so. We became the local neighborhood fascination.
Are you happy with the renovation as a whole?We are very happy with the renovation and think that this could be duplicable for others. As an architect I have figured out a lot of the technical structural requirements that were needed in order for the dormer system to work properly as integrated into the existing structure of a house, so this is not something that a homeowner could do without the assistance of an architect and a structural engineer. The city was able to issue a permit for the project through my ministrations and several pages of structural details
Dubbed the ‘Eyebrow House’ by its owner, architect Edgar Papazian of Doon Architecture LLC, the steel arches were added during renovation to expand the second floor, which initially was a small, tube-like shaped attic/storage space.
What was Papzian’s inspiration and thought process in designing his ‘Eyebrow House’? He explains:
After the renovation, what exists on the second level that wasn’t there before? There are two new bedrooms (one master – rear and one smaller one -front), as well as a new, second bathroom.
How did you come up with the concept to utilize steel arches to achieve your objective?The idea sprang from sketches I made of the house when we first saw it. The architectural problem is one of adding dormers to a small gable-roof house, and how to do so without making the house look top-heavy [which would occur with] traditional stick-built construction. The curvature is something I came up with to make the house appear more visually streamlined and yet have livable, architectural-character space on the second level. We also were attempting to make a better visual connection from the house interior to the rear of the property through large areas of glazing. The curves I wanted were a theme that carried through a lot of the millwork and choice of plumbing fixtures. I had never used these arches before, although I’d seen them used in instances other than typical Quonset hut buildings—once at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York for a sound installation and then in Architectural Record for [Hodgdon Powder’s] office building in the Midwest that’s on the SteelMaster Buildings’ website.
How did the use of the arches add to your vision for the ultimate renovation of the house?I had looked at other types of material that would give me the curvature such as glulam beams, but the [SteelMaster] arches were visually interesting and cost-effective. I was able to work with SteelMaster to get the curvatures I required both by code and visual proportion, within strict tolerances. By exposing them on the inside and building an insulatable shell around them (stuffed with spray foam insulation getting us our code-mandated R-value), we get a cool galvanized interior finish that required no further finishing and gives an industrial, bright feel. I specified triple-glazed arch-top metal extrusion windows to complement the aesthetic of the arches, on both the front and rear facades.
How would you classify the construction process of putting the arches into place? After the minor ordeal of getting the material off the truck and onto the second level of the house and a bit of head-scratching about how the pieces were marked (and some screw-ups in initial assembly that resulted in bizarre-looking curves), my contractor figured it out, and the arches were up essentially within a day or so. We became the local neighborhood fascination.
Are you happy with the renovation as a whole?We are very happy with the renovation and think that this could be duplicable for others. As an architect I have figured out a lot of the technical structural requirements that were needed in order for the dormer system to work properly as integrated into the existing structure of a house, so this is not something that a homeowner could do without the assistance of an architect and a structural engineer. The city was able to issue a permit for the project through my ministrations and several pages of structural details
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