The Green House by Schwartz and Architecture Balances Old and New in Design

Our primary design charge became “First, do no harm.” This dictum, from Hippocrates’ 400 B.C.E. text “Of the Epidemics”, would prove ironic given the timing of the global pandemic and its impact on the project’s cost and schedule. Our challenge was to protect the design integrity of the home while adding a substantial amount of space to make the home viable for a young family with three children.

The home was virtually untouched by the original owners and included custom furniture pieces salvaged and integrated into the new design. The house is tucked back from the road on a flag lot surrounded by more traditional suburban homes. The original home was 1,590 SF with three bedrooms and two baths on a third of an acre lot. We added 1,512 SF for a total of 3,102 SF. When we first met on site, we discussed the importance of respecting the integrity of the original home and landscape, which featured a landscaped swale running along the center of the site –a distinctive added topography for the small site and essential, we would soon find out, given the high-water table of the property.

Given the spider-like sculptural roof and scuppers of the original, the home already was a complete thought, with no obvious solution of how to add to the composition, let alone double the interior square footage. Our first design move was to head off the existing downward sloping roof beams mid-span and add a small rear addition along the entire length of the house under a new upward-sloping roof. This opened the dark kitchen and bedrooms with a new higher ceiling while continuing the rhythm of the existing structure and creating a niche for hidden cove lighting where the original beams once ran.

In addition, since the existing carport and scupper was too low for many modern family cars and no longer met local code for covered parking, we raised the roofline and scupper at the front to create a new carport while also converting a portion of that area into a new sunken family room, consistent with the mid-century vibe of the original.

Finally, we added a prime bedroom suite tucked behind a new board-formed concrete wall. Taking inspiration from the home’s existing concrete block walls, our addition peeks out behind the new wall –referential but deferential. Despite the addition’s deference, we wanted the roof to have its own distinct character, with the lightness of the clerestory windows balancing the heaviness of the original roofline. Whenever possible, views through the space frame the iconic roof scuppers as they touch down to ground. The design strategy is to let our modern interventions shine but with the mindset of “What would Mr Green do?”