This modern home addition to this lovely home on one of Washington’s most picturesque streets adjacent to the national park overlooking the Potomac river, was inspired by the simple need for a larger kitchen, better internal circulation and to better utilize existing “left over” and under utilized spaces throughout the home.

The new work features the relocation of the entry from the “front” street elevation to the side of the house to create more privacy and seduction at the entry condition. The entry is capped by a new glass and steel canopie to protect the entrant from weather while providing a clear view of the guest from the new second floor window above. We added an elevator in a camponile style architectural element on the front façade with an illuminated vertical light shaft to mark the entry and highlight the uniqueness on the interior. We added a modest rear addition which doubled the kitchen into a new triangular configuration which visually explodes into the rear yard through large plate glass windows, bringing the outside in as a real part of the new living space. At the second floor above the kitchen we added a new guest room.

We cantilevered a new Brazilian cherry terrace and enlarged the picture windows on the second floor front elevation off the master bedroom to provide the perfect perch above the Potomac river for bird and people watching. The site was re-landscaped to highlight and reinforce the new architectural circulation around the site, installing a new cedar privacy fence along the west, entry side of the house which provides privacy and crates a cozy entry condition on a generous side porch. A new triangular rear deck off the kitchen reflects the triangular layout of the new enlarged kitchen. The broad rear deck stairs also serve as casual stadium style seating for guests enjoying the rear yard, pool house and dipping pool.

Finally we replaced the existing non-functional garage with a new modern, multipurpose pool-house-guest house-garage with a full bath, interchangeable space and an exercise area that easily converts to a single car.

The materials were matched to the original house architecture to seamlessly integrate the new with the old and create a new, more functional home for the client.

Photographer: Andy Ramirez

LOCATION

Wardensville, WV

 

This generous 2 Bedroom 2 ½ bath mountain home strategically set on 2 ½ acres of heavily wooded mountainside bordering the George Washington National Forest, was designed and sited to maximize the passive solar gain the site offered and to leverage the stunning mountain, stream and wildlife ambiance of the adjacent national forest. This mountain home was designed to accommodate the owners growing family, their love of nature and hate of home maintenance. The house is virtually maintenance free with a standing seam metal roof, Hardi siding, aluminum clad wood windows and concrete porches, built to be open and airy on the interior, with high vaulted ceilings and generous natural light but built to maximum energy standards. With wide plank wood floors throughout, wood detailing, wood doors, monumental stair to the second floor loft and bedrooms, the house retains a warm, cozy feeling as the house fills up with family and friends at holidays and special events.

The house features a wide and welcoming 6 x 30 open front entry sitting porch; a large master bedroom suite with large vaulted master bedroom with wood burning stove, bath with roll in shower, walk in closet, home office and covered sitting porch built over a natural spring fed creek; large vaulted living-dining-kitchen space with wood burning stove and 8 foot tall french doors which open out to the forest and onto a 15 x 20 screen porch over the creek adjacent to the house. Above the kitchen and utility rooms is a large open loft overlooking the living room, bedroom and bath. Finally, there is also a large powder room, full laundry/mud room, pantry, 2 car garage, grilling deck and a full attic above the garage for storage.

Overall the house was designed to comfortably accommodate 2 or a raucous gang of 12. Designed as a weekend retreat to evolve over time into a retirement home and family retreat center, the house was built with sturdy, energy efficient bones and lots of space for the family to grow into over the years and decades to come. With it’s adjacency to the national forest this retreat transforms seasonally from a secluded summer haven from the urban life of the family, into a fall color spectacular, winter wonderland full of wildlife and natural beauty and a blossoming spring wildlife and bird sanctuary.

Photographer: Andy Ramirez

LOCATION

Washington, DC

PROJECT DATE

The former Embassy of Italy is the crown of historic “Embassy Row” in the nations capitol, located 20 blocks north of the White House, at the precipice of Meridian Hill in the heart of Washington’s hottest renaissance neighborhood of Adams Morgan-Columbia Heights. The site is 4 blocks west of the new Columbia Heights Metro and directly on the main north-south bus and automobile transportation route in and out of the city, 16th Street, N.W.

The project we designed will fully restore the exterior of the historic landmark building and the main interior monumental rooms, we converted the remainder of the mansion into luxury apartments and created a new 8 storey , L shaped condominium tower in the northwest corner of the site with a 5 storey condominium element at the south west corner. This low tower creates a harmonious contextual relationship with the existing apartment buildings at the adjacent corners to the south and south west while complementing the existing historic landmark in scale, style and detail. A new low, 3 storey north wing was designed as a spare contemporary element with a custom glass and steel curtain wall framed by stucco and masonry massing that tie this element to the landmark across a new “streetscape” along the north side of the property via a new “glass bridge”.

While we are maintaining and restoring the monumental historic entrance and ceremonial driveway along 16th Street to the east and the decorative chancery entrance on Fuller, we are also created a prominent new Fuller Street entrance in the south elevation of the new 5 storey addition and we created a new 3 storey monumental entrance to the tower on Mozart Street which together, liven this long abandoned and derelict corner of the neighborhood.

The new building will stylistically complement the existing historic resource, however it will employ finish materials that are more rich in scale, texture and finish. While the existing historic resource is finished with stucco, limestone and a clay tile roof, our new buildings feature a heavily rusticated stone base, walls clad in richly patterned roman brick, heavily fenestrated metal windows and doors capped with clay tile roofs that simultaneously create an important connection to the landmark resource, animate the towers roofline against the sky and screen the rooftop mechanical equipment.

With around 110 luxury condominium apartments and generous below grade parking, the building will become a new landmark along this historically significant boulevard. The site is one of the physically highest ridges in Washington D.C. which is visible from nearly every point in the city. With as many as 30% of the apartments have direct connection to private outdoor space, most apartments on the site offer commanding views of downtown Washington and the Potomac river basin, the Washington National Cathedral and the landmark spires to the north. The unique and luxurious character of the apartments, ranging from efficiency to 3 bedroom units, surpasses anything the market has seen in many years. Custom millwork, wood and stone flooring, high ceilings and oversized operable windows all combine to make this one of the most desirable addresses in the new city core.

The Zoning commission expressed their support of the project design as exhibiting “all of the characteristics of exemplary urban design and architecture. The project will invigorate a vacant site along a major District corridor. The superior architecture of the addition complements the landmark and highlights the historic resource rather than overpowering it.”

Construction is schedule to begin in Q-1, 2012 with delivery of units beginning in Q-3, 2013.

Photography By: Studio By MaK

LOCATION

North Arlington, VA

 

PROJECT DATE

2010

 

This new house project enveloped an existing single story ranch home, creating a new 2 story home for a newly married couple. The original house, a single story, 2 bedroom ranch house was outgrown by this expanding family who loved the house and the neighborhood and wanted to stay put, but needed more living space, a new kitchen, more bedrooms and substantial home office capacity. The house was also surrounded by great decades old oak trees, which were very carefully integrated into the new design.

We retained the overall footprint of the house: enclosing a screened porch off the old kitchen and transforming a small patio off one bedroom into a glass enclosed sitting porch off a new first floor sitting room. The real transformation was created by adding a second floor under a very large arts and crafts style roof, over the entire house footprint, using dormers and ingenious roof lines to craft volumes of space with-in the roof so a traditional “second floor” could be avoided in the new massing of the house.

The old kitchen was removed along with the old rear wall of the house in this area and an existing screen porch was enclosed to create a new expansive kitchen and family dining room at garden level with wall to wall windows onto the adjacent yard and flower garden. The existing living room was reconfigured to create a new piano niche, substantial coat closets and entry vestibule while expanding the main living space around the fireplace by the addition of a new bay window which floods the space with southern light. A new family entertainment room was created out of one of the original bedrooms with built-in entertainment center and adjacent glass enclosed sitting room with a new gas fireplace.

A new stair was created with windows that carefully frame the branches of an existing ancient oak in the rear yard. A new Master Bedroom Suite, 2 new bedrooms, 2 baths and a generous home office were created under the new roof all with generous new windows and playful ceiling configurations. A new second floor sunning porch was added off the rear to provide privacy from the street and a tree house feeling from the rear of the house.

We designed the house to be fully usable during the daylight hours without the need for artificial light sources, bringing natural light deep into each room from generous window walls, carefully located to frame natural view outside. We carefully worked around the existing trees on the site in framing window views of these magnificent specimens, bringing them “indoors” as part of the house living experience wherever possible.

LOCATION

Amatanth, PA

 

This new farm house was built to replace a century old family homestead that burned down in a tragic, all consuming fire in the winter of 2003. The new house was designed to replace the original house not in form but in spirit and function. With an artist in the household, the house design needed to include a large art studio and commanding views in all directions to take advantage of the wonderful light throughout the day for landscape painting. The house was situated, in nearly the same spot as the original farmhouse, with every effort made to maintain and protect the mature elm and oak trees and the rear yard fruit trees around the house that were not destroyed by the original fire.

The design was created with full accessibility in mind. The custom mahogany 4 foot wide front door welcomes you into a light filled central stair hall which distributes you to the coat hall, powder room, guest suite, master bedroom suite and lofted great room which houses the living dining areas with adjacent open plan kitchen. The stair hall leads you to the second floor guest bedroom suite, bunk room for the kids and the art studio with both covered and open decks for painting, reading or sunning.

The living room features an enormous 4 foot by 5 foot Eldorado Stone fireplace with a slab pear mantle that was cut from an old tree lost to the fire that destroyed the original house. There are 2 custom fabricated 20m arm black iron chandeliers hanging from the cathedral ceiling and a full wall of glass flanking the fireplace to the east which bring in the morning light. There is a 40 foot wide open porch with arts and crafts stucco chimney with random placed Pewabic Pottery storey tiles. Several porch swings that were rescued from the original house hang here for evening story time with the grandchildren.

The large family style kitchen features a large open counter to the dining area with custom fabricated iron brackets featuring frogs, lizards and grass hoppers. Off the kitchen is a full laundry room and pantry. Thru the kitchen to the western sunset is a screened dining porch with a fireplace for those lovely evening dinners when the temperature dips just a little below comfort level. This screened porch is shared by the Master bedroom suite.

The Master bedroom suite features a large walk in closet, heated stone tiled Master bathroom with walk-in shower and linen closet. The bedroom has a modest wood burning fireplace adjacent to the whirlpool bathtub bay window niche to the west, for that romantic wind down at the end of the day. There is a screened porch to the south and an open porch to the north depending on your mood for enjoying the views.

The second floor art studio is a light filled lofted space with south facing windows, west covered deck and north open deck, each space with the best commanding views of the farm and the swimming pond across the field to the west. From here the painter in the house can see for miles in any direction and has adjacent farms, extended valley views or mountain views to choose as her subject.

The exterior metal roof echoes the original house while the new double insulated aluminum clad wood windows and doors and cement horizontal plank siding and shingles provide a virtually maintenance free shell to protect this wonderful new homestead which will be enjoyed by generations to come.

LOCATION

Drummond, MD

This new garage and porch addition to one of the oldest existing farm houses in the historic village of Drummond, Chevy Chase, Maryland, blends new technology and style with the old world charm and detailing of the existing farmhouse. This 1.5 story single car garage addition, incorporates extensive storage for toys, tools, yard equipment, bikes, pool equipment and the family car plus a bonus loft-office with it’s own separate entrance. The subordinate sighting of the garage allowed for full visual access to the side play yard for mom from the existing kitchen, through a new screen porch. This new screen porch, through a set of 5 folding doors, doubles the size of the family living space off the kitchen during warm months, and provides a sheltered link from the garage to the house and the pool yard in the rear during inhospitable weather. The garage massing, prairie style doors and windows, painted German siding and roofing materials complement the existing house details to blend the two as if they were always a complementary pair.

This Co-Operative approached Trout Design to freshen up their decades old lobby. We gutted the finishes and created a vibrant new plan with new live planter and custom built-in seating and mail lobby demilune. We added all new lighting, new ceiling, wall and floor finishes to be attractive, durable and timeless, yet of our time.