Work · Built detail · 2026

Carport

A carport is the smallest piece of architecture a family is likely to commission, and the easiest to design indifferently. I treated this one the way I would treat a house. Foundations, post bases, braced walls, roof slope, the joinery where the timber meets the concrete — every detail drawn at the resolution the builder would need. It was finished in Walla Walla in February 2026. Building it has changed how I draw the others.

Site University Street, Walla Walla

Role Design · full CD set · site visits

Structure 6×6 glulam posts · 3×8 DF @ 16″ o.c. · metal roof

Status Built · 2026

The carport standing — posts, beam, and rafter tails, the roof running off the existing garage — 18 February 2026 — the structure framed, mid-build: the posts, the beam, and the rafter tails the details promised. Finished later that month.

After construction, I rebuilt the drawing set to test every detail against what was actually built.

The document set · drawn at the builder’s resolution

The set includes the foundation plan, the roof framing plan, the site plan, the elevations, and the joinery details — the post base into its concrete pier, and the roof-to-ledger condition where the new structure takes hold of the existing house. The post base is an ABU66Z; the anchor bolts run at four inches on center with a two-by-two plate washer; the beam is a 5½ × 7½ glulam; the roof slope is one-and-a-half in twelve. Those numbers are not here as a parts list. They are the resolution at which the building actually had to be made — and the resolution I want to live at as a designer.

Site plan — the new carport hatched beside the existing garage, between University Street and the back alley — The site plan. New work hatched, the existing garage and house dashed, the property line in clay — the whole project is the relationship between those three readings.

Foundation plan — three new piers beside the existing garage foundation — The foundation plan keeps the existing garage footing and removes concrete only on the west side, where the new structure asks for it — the two notes on the drawing are the whole argument.

Roof framing plan — rafters at sixteen inches on center over the dashed structure below — The roof framing plan — 3×8s at 16″ on center, with the structure below dashed in behind them; the sheet the framer and I talked over most.

North, south and west elevations of the carport at one scale — the shed roof leaving the garage, the slope and clear height, and the gable end with the 6×6 column — North, south, and west, at one scale — the glulam beam picking up the shed roof where it leaves the house; the slope at one-and-a-half in twelve with six-foot-ten held clear; and the new roof arriving at the existing garage on a 6×6 column.

The joinery · where the drawing commits

Post-base detail — ABU66Z post base with half-inch rebar hooked through the concrete pier — The post base — an ABU66Z anchored into its pier, the rebar hooked where the concrete needs it. The drawing that makes the structure’s grip on the ground legible.

Roof-to-ledger detail — 2×8 ledger board, HUC 38 hangers, metal roof over ice-and-water shield — The roof-to-ledger condition — a 2×8 ledger bolted at 16″ on center, HUC 38 hangers, ice-and-water shield across the whole roof. This is where the new structure takes hold of the existing house.

The field corrects the drawing

Under the new roof looking out at the yard — rafters overhead, posts at the edge of the deck — Mid-build, 18 February 2026 — standing under the drawing: the rafters at sixteen on center, exactly as the framing plan runs them.

The ledger board and joist hangers against the existing garage wall — Mid-build, 18 February 2026 — the ledger taking hold of the existing house: the HUC 38 hangers from the roof-to-ledger detail, installed.

The site visits were the part of the project I did not know I needed. I had drawn the set with what I thought was complete care; the field, immediately, found the places where care was not the same as accuracy. A dimension that read clearly on the page would meet a condition on the ground the page had not anticipated. A detail that worked in the section would meet the carpenter’s sequencing and have to be talked through. I learned to revise drawings standing on the slab, and to ask the framer how he was going to build the connection before I committed to drawing it the way I had drawn it the first time.

The conversation with the contractor was not a correction of my drawings; it was a continuation of them.

The carport sits on the lot as if it had always been part of it. The roof slope catches the rain in the direction the property already drains. The columns are spaced for the cars and the doors that open from them. The connection to the existing house is detailed so the two read as parts of the same property rather than as a host and a guest. None of this is dramatic. All of it is the result of a document set correct enough that the building could meet the site without arguing with it.

Until the carport was built, every drawing I had ever made was a drawing of a building that was not going to happen. The carport made me a designer whose drawings have been committed to lumber and concrete and corrected by both. That is a small claim to make at this stage in a career, and it is also the only claim that matters.