HOW DO YOU BALANCE SPACE FOR SELF AND SPACE FOR FAMILY?
DUPLICATE THE SILHOUETTE.
Designed for a mother and her two small children, this renovation transforms a 1930’s Colonial in Arlington into a home that would allow room for her kids to grow, while also maintaining a space of her own. The client sought to expand the shared living areas with a larger, more functional kitchen and family room while creating a private primary suite for herself.
The addition takes the form of a contemporary reflection of the original house, replicating its massing and roof pitch in a new volume positioned directly behind the existing structure. This placement preserves the home’s presence on the street, ensuring the addition remains largely invisible from the neighborhood and maintains the scale and character of the surrounding context.
The new and existing volumes are connected by a light-filled glass “gasket” that connects the basement to the first floor and bridges the existing house to the addition.
Skylights above wash the original brick wall with natural light and bring daylight deep into the ground-floor living spaces.
The addition houses an expansive kitchen and family room on the ground floor, creating generous spaces for everyday family life.
The connection between old and new is carefully achieved by reusing existing window and door openings wherever possible, supplemented by new openings at the ends of the original corridors to create a seamless flow throughout the home.
Above, a new primary suite is accessed via a bridge spanning the glass connector, offering elevated views across the adjacent meadow and reinforcing the home’s relationship to the surrounding landscape.
Situated adjacent to a nature reserve and surrounded by mature trees, the property offers a rare connection to the landscape, which became a guiding principle for the design.
Rather than competing with the existing architecture, the design extends it. The result is an addition that feels both familiar and distinctly contemporary—an architectural intervention that honors the original 1930s Colonial while enabling it to support the evolving needs of its owners for years to come.
