REMODELING PORTFOLIO: ADDITIONS

Sweeping Rear Addition to Traditional House

Winner "Grand Award for Creative Design"
Capital Contractor of the Year Awards, NARI

The task: open up the cramped and dark interiors to a beautiful backyard.

Also, unify the kitchen, family room, and living room spaces, which felt isolated from each other and from the outdoors and natural light. And, expand the basement to create a wine cellar.

The project resulted in designing and building a Living Room Expansion, New Family Room with Arced Balcony, a Mid-level Landing, and a Lower Flagstone Patio with Stone Firepit.

The Design Challenge: create maximum transparency, new views, openness, space and light, and integration with the outdoors and adjacent interior spaces.

Structural Challenge: open up the rear wall to the maximum width.

Control topography for runoff and landscaping.

Site Challenges: difficult sloped site with extremely high shale content. Need for tree preservation and easement clearances.

The H&P architect chose a single strong sweeping curve in the addition's floor plan and elevation. The seemingly simple but complex design was built with detail and precision by H&P's master craftsmen.

The arc of floor to ceiling glass wall and curved roof, which pitches upwards, captures views of treetops and clouds, and draws natural light into the previously dark interiors. The glass creates a continuous panorama of mature trees and landscaping.

A semicircular balcony cantilevers over the yard, and reinforces the addition's curved geometry. A separate intermediate deck transitions to the lower flagstone patio.

The owners, as well as their guests, say a new energy has enlivened their entire home. They feel that the new space, light, views, and flow of energy has transformed positively the way they experience their daily lives in the house. The entire rear wall of the addition, with the ceiling plane sloping upwards to the clouds, is an ever changing panoramic painting of their great outdoors. The owners added a dramatic water feature and landscaping to further enhance their project.