Portland General Electric (PGE) recently released their future plans to change the net metering policies in Oregon. Their draft proposal could have a major impact on all current and future solar owners in Oregon by slashing net metering credits for users who can’t afford battery storage.

We are excited to announce that a Harka project was recently featured in Fine Homebuilding Magazine. The piece focuses on how we creatively created a legal loft space inside the ADU while overcoming the challenges of the building codes.

When we were approached by Redfin.com to contribute our thoughts as to what makes a home timeless, we were immediately excited. Our natural focus on sustainability made this easy.

We are so excited about our latest interior creation: a super cool wine bar in the Pearl! A huge thank you to the owners of Bar Diane for making this happen. They are amazing people that were TRULY a pleasure to work with. As you can see from the murals, Sami is an extremely talented artist which helped take the space to the next level. Congrats to Joshua Jewett in our office for a job well done. Insider Information: If you peek through the slats in the fence outside, you can still see the parking sign painted on the concrete wall from the long lost Gypsy Lounge. Go check out their amazing wines and food!

See the feature in PDX Eater

When a client comes to us with a new project, they often have an idea in mind of what they want the finished result to look like. While this is always the starting point for our design process, putting pen to paper and developing 3D models can often reveal challenges with the initial ideas, as well as present unique opportunities for alternative solutions. In this case study, we show how we evaluated varied solutions to a complex design problem with 3D modeling to find a clean and elegant option that best met the client’s goals.

You can find endless articles, thinkpieces and blog entries much like this one about the myth of the ethical shopper, whether organic food is really better for the environment, and the effectiveness of boycotting sweatshops. Sifting through to find real, substantive information about how to make tangible change with the things you consume challenging and exhausting, and is it even worth it?

When we talk about the orientation of a building, we mean how the building sits on the site relative to its context, the most important of which is typically the sun (other factors being wind, views, topography and surrounding  landscapes, buildings and streets). It is easier to optimize the orientation of a building for solar exposure in new construction, but there are takeaways that can be applied to existing homes as well.

Do you like the values of cohousing and shared community resources? Are you a homeowner hoping to create rent-able space on your property, but searching for a compromise between renting an existing room and building a detached Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) in your yard? Or perhaps aging parents are moving in and you'd like to offer more privacy and autonomy for them than a suite within your main home?

If any of these scenarios are appealing, then detached bedrooms may be a solution for your project!