The cabin features extensive glazing to allow the interior to open to the exterior, maximizing opportunity for views of Puget Sound. Aluminum clad wood windows and sliding glass doors provide for this openness. A rebuilt Ipe wood deck to the west allows for outside entertaining adjacent to the main living spaces.

In response to environmental concerns, glazing is thermal, double-paned glass with a low-e reflective coating. The extensive glazing promotes passive solar heating and provides abundant natural light. Exposed concrete floors, with energy-efficient hydronic heating, also serve as a heat sink for passive solar heating. Sun screens and operable windows providing cross-ventilation provide for natural cooling, alleviating the need for mechanical air-conditioning.

The project site is a low-bank waterfront property featuring a gentle western slope down to Puget Sound. An existing one-story cabin on the site with a daylight basement was to be remodeled. Given existing structural problems, the structure had to be demolished to its foundations. Given restrictions due to an existing septic drainage field, the existing building's lot coverage could not be expanded. The clients requested an open, contemporary design that would maximize views and take advantage of the site.

The clients wished to completely reorganize and expand the existing cabin's layout. Given the site development restrictions, the design concept evolved into making a small addition replacing a portion of an existing exterior deck. The addition was conceived as a wood box "insertion" into the volume of the main cabin structure. The new box "slides" in over the existing floor structure and cantilevers out over existing foundation walls, thus not affecting the existing drain field. This wood box contains the master bedroom, bath and kitchen. The exterior shape and wood finish of the box extends from outside to inside emphasizing the continuity of the form. Clerestory windows separate the box "insertion" from the main structure's shed roof above. The daylight basement was remodeled to include a family room, two bedrooms, a new bath, and a laundry and mechanical room.

The cabin structure is sheathed in horizontal and vertical Ipe wood siding; the foundation below is sheathed with fiber cement panels.