20th St Townhouse
This unusual 20 foot wide wood frame house had a 4 foot wide side yard and existing front and rear extensions. BAAO completely overhauled the house for a family of four with a palette of natural wood and gray tones punctuated by surfaces of graphic tile patterns. The building volume was selectively carved and expanded to carefully proportion room sizes, sequences and adjacencies and to capture available light with generously-sized skylights, window walls and glazed corners. The front extension was carved away at the corner to create a covered front porch, wraparound corner window, and mud room area.
The rear extension was widened to about 15 feet to create a generous mahogany-paneled kitchen with an island, pantry, and home office nook. A deck off the kitchen extends the materiality of the interior living space out into the yard.
The stairs were relocated to the party wall to open up the exposed wall to available light. Additional light from a large skylight above the stairwell filters down to the interior of the floor plate.
Upstairs, the master suite is located at the front and insulated from the noise of the house by an airlock of two separate pocket doors. A windowed-walk-in closet, a skylit bathroom, and a bedroom with a large west-facing glazed wall bring lots of light inside. In the back, corner-wrapping windows take advantage of the open skies behind the house to bring generous amounts of light into the kids’ bedrooms. White oak floors, stairs and built-Ins throughout the house keep the palette pale and neutral.
In the bathrooms, cement tile and ceramic mosaics in graphic patterns of blue and white mix with oak elements and fixtures. Vinyl tiles in the basement are also laid in a graphic pattern to animate the space, which is set up as a family room and sports equipment storage. Outside, tongue and groove white cedar siding and integrate fencing and planters creates crisp square corners. Rectangles of gray stain wrap the entries and slide around exposed corners to emphasize the volumetric shifts in the façade.
