The floor plans, left and photographs, right, from attic descending to the basement, show a large bedroom and ensuite occupying the entirety of the third floor. The attic was opened to increase the volume of this floor, revealing a beautifully sculpted series of surfaces created by the intersection of the gabled main and dormer roofs. Two bedrooms sit on the second floor flanking a family washroom. A family room that occasionally doubles as a guest bedroom is at the front of the house delineated by a large sliding barn door used to modulate the space. Closed, the barn door reveals a collection of books and separates the front room from the rest of the floor for movie watching, video game playing, and reading. While open, the room participates in the activities, spaces, and daylighting of the rest of the second floor. These two floors are connected with floor opening with glazed guards on the open side to bring natural light into the corridor of the second floor, an otherwise dark hallway. The ground floor is a continuous set of layered spaces moving from entry, to living, to dining, to a galley kitchen, bringing you to a large window and sliding door to a back porch and garden. This large aperture stretches wall to wall and floor to ceiling, linking the interior to the outside, brightening the kitchen end of the ground floor with brilliant morning sunlight. It is the only place where a small portion of the original masonry wall was removed to acknowledge a more contemporary way to occupy a house.
this page, left, from top: Top floor under the roofs Second floor, the family floor Ground floor, living, dining and kitchen floor Basement, a rec-room and work-from-home office Longitudinal section, showing where on the stairwell side of the house, the original double wythe brick walls (the constraining shell) are revealed.
facing page, from the top: Third floor attic bedroom,
The second floor family room with its sliding barn door that when closed reveals bookshelves and separates the room from the rest of the floor, including the childrens’ bedrooms. With the door open, the room is an extension of the family-oriented second floor. The ground floor facing toward the street: living room at the front, dining in the middle, working kitchen at the back: degrees of public to private family life.
large [medium] design office
12 on site review 45: houses + housing
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