Environmental Productions LLC

One of my first home design projects as principal of my own firm Environmental Productions in Avon-Vail at Singletree with Beaver Creek resort in the background for Sam Sterling Homes. While the home is situated near the 10th hole of the Singletree luxury golf course, it answered the call with one of the first attached ADU units built in Avon-Vail on a small lot. The 1,000 ft "ski instructors" unit faces the street and also shares the backyard hot tub.

As it turned out, the "Spec." home paid for itself with income generated from the ADU. The half-basement garden level with the split-level entry was economical way to create both adequate living space and privacy between the main part of the house, and the party-wall-ADU.

Mid-century Walk-out Basement conversion to ADU for a family member. This basement transformation was miniaturized in details for simple living. My home in Barnum Park was designed and built by the late well known-school and church architect Carol Lewis for himself and his young family. The home was then purchased in 1958 by my father, a freelance writer, and immigrant refuge from the Shoa, with my mother also an immigrant-refuge of the Cold War. The basement faces the street as the house is built into a hillside. The tiny front space has had many different lives: first, as a small one-car garage, then around 1960 (when I was born) converted to a rustic office space in which my father, Curtis W. Casewit typed-up some 30 published books 1960-2000 ; for a brief period after 2002, I stored my architects files and such; the back room had originally been designed as a photographer' dark room. was then converted into a bedroom and laundry area. In 2009, my mother decided to move from Independent Living and move back after 40 years and live in the same home with me-- but in a newly created private apartment- ADU! The main front space only about 12' x16' allowed everything to be easily within reach from my mother's sofa. She often entertained friends and family including many generations of children in her attached "granny flat."

The task was to design four new town homes to compliment the historic Stevens School condominium conversion originally designed in 1900 by renowned architect Robert S. Roeschlaub--Colorado's first licensed architect. The Stevens School Town homes was an early example of new urban infill in the heart of the Congress Park neighborhood, not far from the Denver Botanic Gardens. The south playground of the school was utilized for the new town homes incorporating a variation of the house forms found in the neighborhood, while also maintaining the pastoral setting. Detached garages were located along the alley. Attention was given to adjacent garden space preserving views of the school from many angles. The over all site development plan presented was by Niccolo and winning approval of multiple zoning variances, revocable permits, and Landmark Preservation Commission approvals from the City of Denver.

Every designer has that "first building" --mine was a community training center built in Egypt for The Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) with funding from the Ford Foundation. The training center in El Bayad, Egypt-a small town south of Cairo--was expanded in 1982 to house 26 trainees for the duration of the seminars. Classroom space, a meeting hall, a community kitchen, and 14 bedrooms surround two traditional courtyards. The building complex was designed with local materials to respond to harsh desert climate and the vernacular building techniques of the villagers. Optimal cross ventilation, shaded walkways, are employed in the Arab tradition. Limestone walls were utilized with cast concrete roofs reinforced with palm fibers.