35HP House by Joeb Moore & Partners
The renovation of this Tudor style residence in Rye, New York, is a work of restoration and spatial extension.
The addition responds to the key parameters of the existing home, seeking to maximize the habitable use of the site, while preserving the character and history of the existing home within its neighborhood context. This preservation to the existing street façade is accented by a new wood clad entryway, offering a delicate, understated contrast to the neighborhood street facade and connects the entry materially and formally to the more minimalist and abstract “box” addition that extends from the rear of the house (see photos).
This simple rectangular form is both meant to contrast and compliment the original Tudor, post + beam gable house form. By subtracting or carving into the rectangular block we introduced the key spatial concept for the new house. By placing the new glass stair and transitional space (a “white space” gap) between the existing house + living spaces and new family living / master bedroom spaces (see plans + south elevation photo), the vertical stair well acts as an open transitional “white space” that allows natural light to filter into the center areas of the newly configured house + living spaces.
The glass and open space extends horizontally into the new family room + master bedroom towards the new covered rear terrace. The addition is wrapped in a dark, charcoal stained cedar-clad skin that striates when glass is behind it (stair well etc.) but is also connected back to the original post + beams on the old house that are also stained charcoal black (see photos).
The new stair as a sectional void offers a moment of visual + spatial connection and clarity, the synaptic gap where old meets new and never quite touch. The hope is the new unified design binds old and new in a symbiotic relationship by series of elegant but poignant disjunctions of light and space.
Awards:
