Corey Martin says his Park Box duplex "is about how to find a small site and make it feel bigger and more connected to the landscape."	Corey, Michele and 3-year-old Casey Martin revel in how their light-filled duplex brings nature inside. // Photos by Paula Watts

For all the beauty of its natural finishes and simple elegant form, or the do-it-yourself ingenuity that went into developing this affordable boutique duplex, the uniqueness of the Park Box might best be explained by 3-year-old Casey Martin.

“Our son was lying in the living room the other day, and he looked up at me and said, ‘I really like our house,’” recalls his mom, Michele Martin. “He said, ‘You can look up and see the trees, the birds, the clouds moving.’ His awareness of nature has really floored us since we moved in.”

“Casey understands the difference between winter and summer, where the sun comes up and where it goes down,” adds Michele’s husband, Corey, whose firm, PATH Architecture, designed the North Portland home. “In here you see the horizon, and the design of the windows is such that your view is guided upward. You don’t have to look at all the cars and street. On rainy days it’s nice to be in here and not have a single electric light on.”

The Park Box was designed for nature lovers in the city who would prefer to live in the middle of nowhere if there were jobs and good restaurants. Because of all the light permeating the interior, and the subtle way one’s eye is guided to the sky, seasonal affective disorder is simply not possible here, even during Oregon’s perennially gray winter. On the house’s east façade, floor-to-ceiling glass walls and sliding doors look out onto a covered deck and front yard. In the front of the house, the double-height great room’s upper windows allow the Martins, both 40, whether at the kitchen table or reclined on the sofa, to watch the theater of Oregon’s constantly changing weather.