From the Archive: Two Architects, One Very DIY Duplex Reno

Welcome to From the Archive, a look back at stories from Dwell’s past. This story previously appeared in the October/November 2004 issue.

When John Maier went looking for property in 1999, he wasn’t searching for a beautiful house. The University of Texas School of Architecture grad was just a single guy hoping to get a toehold in the Austin real estate market as it rocketed upward during the high-tech boom. A fixer-upper was what he had in mind—something in which he could invest a little sweat equity, utilizing the skills he learned working as a construction carpenter after graduating from architecture school. So when he found a 1950 duplex in a coveted central Austin neighborhood for $95,000 (a deal in the high-priced Texas capital), Maier didn’t imagine that four years later it would be his beautiful house.

Well, half of it, at least.

Maier and his wife, Ulrike Zelter, a German architect whom he met a year after buying the property, transformed one half of the 1,350-square-foot duplex into an open yet spatially efficient apartment that seamlessly connects to the once dysfunctional backyard, effectively making it their second living space. The transformed duplex became the inaugural project of their design firm, Maier + Zelter.

Initially, Maier planned a general cosmetic renovation of both units, with the idea of opening up one of the dark, cramped two-bedroom, one-bath units and occupying it himself. But when he met Zelter, who had come to Austin from Berlin to work on a yearlong project, the scope of the remodel—and their relationship—blossomed.

"I guess you could say the whole process was a little organic," says Maier. Organic—and very DIY. Though Maier and Zelter contracted out some of the exterior construction, they did much of the work themselves, including the wiring and plumbing and the design and fabrication of all the cabinetry and the custom concrete bathroom sink.

The do-it-yourself ethic was one trait the couple had in common; a desire to live small was another. Neither Maier nor Zelter felt it was necessary to increase the size of their 675-square-foot living space. "We didn’t want to be overbuilt or out of scale like so many remodels and additions in Austin are," explains Zelter. All they added to the duplex’s footprint was a 32-square-foot mudroom off their side kitchen entrance, a utilitarian transitional space between inside and out.

Yet while living bigger was not necessarily important for the couple, expanding their space to the outdoors was. Maier, who originally hails from an often chilly region in Iowa, and Zelter, who claims the rainy central Germany town of Weinheim as her hometown, revel in Austin’s temperate, dry climate. "Why just live inside?" says Maier. "Besides, we got more bang for our buck by developing the outdoor areas."

By punching through a wall and installing two double-width sliding glass doors, they connected the main living space to a backyard deck that steps down to the yard via large, steel-sided landscape boxes. It was just part of their battle against the symmetry of the side-by-side duplex. "There was no obvious ownership of either the front or the backyard by one unit or the other," says Zelter. "And so nobody used the yard." The new back porch gave them claim to the backyard. In front, they ripped out a tiny stoop and replaced it with a porch that runs across the front of the other apartment. Now, their tenant has 200 square feet of covered outdoor space.

When it came to landscaping, Maier and Zelter knew they needed a collaborator. The ever-shifting clay foundation in their area had transformed the narrow, 50-year-old cement driveway into a badly cracked and undulating wreck by the time Maier and Zelter started their remodeling project. Jon Ahrens of Kings Creek Landscaping had a solution. With a forklift he ripped up the chunks of driveway cement, replaced them in a loose configuration, and then surrounded the oversized "tiles" with a sea of black Texas gravel. And the uninspired cement walkway out front? Ahrens cut it into tile-sized chunks and used them for pathway stepping stones.

For all the attention they gave to the outside of the house, Maier and Zelter worked from the inside out. "The trick was to take everything out that wasn’t functioning and put back as little as possible," says Maier. Gutting all of the interior walls, save those surrounding the bathroom, left them with one large living space—and no closets. They didn’t want to end up, Maier says, "with one of those empty spaces where all the function gets pushed to the sides," but they did need to create storage space. Their solution was to design a 16-foot-long and three-foot-wide divider unit trimmed in white oak that separates the living area from the bedroom and bathroom. Solid wood sliding doors hide closets on one side; in the living room they open to reveal a home office desk and media equipment. By stopping just short of the ceiling, the dividers allow the space to maintain an open feel. At the far end, a pocket door closes off the bedroom from the living room.

Wherever possible, the architects reused existing materials. That meant refurbishing the original steel casement windows and exterior cedar shake siding and building a minimalist-inspired dining table and benches from leftover Douglas fir bathroom wall studs. It also meant salvaging clay tile for the mudroom and bathroom floors from the trash heap of a custom residential project Maier was working on at the time.

Most of the design decisions were guided by spatial and economic constraints, but it’s a safe bet that the couple would have created a modestly scaled, eco-conscious home for themselves regardless of the resources at hand. "In the larger picture," Zelter explains, "we live and share resources with the rest of the world."

"People forget too easily that design is about solving problems," adds Maier, "not just style."

See more from the Dwell archive on US Modernist.

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