PRIVATE HOUSE

By Brunella Angeli - 1 March 2017
Bulthaup has participated in the project

Recently completed, the radical adaptive renovation of a traditional pitched-roof 1920s brick building - Rock Creek House - by Boston/New York architecture firm NADAAA is immediately apparent from the perimeter walls. Although largely preserving the old order of the original openings, the north-facing street-side façade has been stripped of all cornices, corner pieces and decorative overlays. The roof frame has been inverted and is now a thin braid outlining the top of the façade. The impression is of a rough-cut brick block whose original formal order has been deliberately disrupted. The once equally conventional south-facing façade has been turned into an abstract composition of large glazed openings and monumental window “blocks” that create a continuum between the interiors and the adjacent woodland park. The building’s existing structural frame and internal masonry partitions have now been strategically removed, opening up the east-west axis. Each bearing wall running on the short, north-south, axis has been reinforced with a steel frame to withstand the shear and oblique forces; of the two main elevations the north remains intact as a weight bearing façade, whereas the south becomes brick veneer rain screen over a structural steel and bearing masonry frame. The entrance and stair hall are the point of departure of the new program. From here you get an immediate view of the layout: up through the stairwell on the north side to the three above-ground levels - a secluded study area on the second floor followed by the attic, a multi-use largely open space lit by a skylight - and down to the lower floor where a new south-facing living room opens onto the garden. The new layout is designed to be both family home and workplace. Spaces have been hierarchically organized in a series of areas for group work, social activities, study and relaxation, a program that is reiterated throughout. As well as connecting to the...