HANGAR HOUSE

Wasilla, Alaska

Categories: Mixed use, Single Family, Alaska, Mat-Su, Wasilla, Hangar, Garage/Shop, Master Suite, Rural, Planned Unit Development

Total area, buildings: 4,070 sq. ft. [new]

Total area, site: 40,048 sq. ft.

Contractor: Owner

What one appreciates about Alaska after being here awhile is its lack of easy access. With few highways across a vast area, it is left to other means to enable travel to the majority of the state. For those able to do so, private ownership of small planes has been in effect for decades. Mostly this involves storing the plane at an airfield as close to home as possible. People have been wishing they could live at the airfield for a long time – but you wouldn't want to live in a hangar, right? The hangar house concept makes this arrangement highly desirable [either deployed individually, or in a community of hangar houses as with this example] by wrapping a comfortable dwelling unit around two sides of a 50x50x18 ft. high hangar. The airstrip taxiway adjoins the rear or side property line. The owners used a prototype of a nearby hangar house as an inspiration and point of departure, working with Designer Clark Yerrington on a series of revisions with goals of better separation of functions, improved circulation patterns and addition of features.