Tozer Design

While capturing our client's dreams - and making an artistic contribution to the built environment - we also know our structures must function well ergonomically, and fit the site.
These performance goals inform our mission to fully understand a client's design program via intensive, iterative, conceptual design, and their building site via multiple, pre-design, visits.
Connecting interior spaces to the site and natural light is vital to our work.
Thoughtful site analysis - and solar studies - kick off every project.

Replacing an aging "mill home" in downtown Bend (walk score 84, bike score 95), our modern interpretation of Prairie style architecture shelters a young family of four.
Along with a preserved old growth Ponderosa Pine, exaggerated overhangs intentionally shade the home from the high desert sun and add a dramatic, Prairie-style, punch to all four elevations.
The home is quiet and reserved street side, but for an inviting, design-integrated, water feature displaying the owner's rock collection.
The rear yard holds a multipurpose outdoor living/dining room, connected to indoor space via full-light, south-facing, bi-fold, doors which fully retract during the warmer months of the year.

The world's first Living Building Certified residence, Desert Rain provides a roadmap to cutting edge, integrated, sustainable design.
Three, new, "rustic modern" dwellings replace two aging lumber mill homes at this downtown Bend location (walk score 82, bike score 95) creating an intentional community of creative, deep green, pioneers.
Net zero energy; net zero water; non-toxic, local, building materials; and a design rooted to place and supporting Bend's indigenous flora and fauna, Desert Rain showcases the transformative potential of our residential design + build community.

Warm Pacific Northwest building materials, assembled at this forested site overlooking the Little Deschutes River, provide a welcoming, year-round, shelter.
Generous overhangs keep lingering winter snows from closing off outdoor area access and add to the forest-provided shade during hot, high-desert, summers.
Expansive glazing provides seasonally-changing framed views of the surrounding forest and riparian areas from all interior locations.
And with most glazing operable, robust cross ventilation negates the need for energy-intensive mechanical cooling.

A clean, crisp Prairie-style home, pushing the sustainable design envelope with Forest Stewardship Council certified framing lumber and hardwood floors, wool carpet, reclaimed fir and walnut finish woods, formaldehyde-free insulation, zero volatile organic compound paints, LED lighting, photovoltaic panels, and predominantly native, drought-resistant, landscaping.
Generous overhangs and abundant, operable, glazing turn this design into an architectural shade tree during the high-desert summers, thus avoiding the need for mechanical AC.