This project in one half of a twin house in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn is for a family with five children. The owners wanted to widen and lengthen their house to the legally acceptable maximums to provide an additional bedroom for their children, a new play room in the basement, expanded kitchen facilities, and an additional master bathroom and laundry upstairs.

The final design was premised on relocating the stairway from along the party wall to a perpendicular location between the kitchen and dining room. This sky-lit stairway provides a vertical focus for the house, both inside and out, with a sloped roof up to it and a clerestory window above it and large openings on one wall to fill it with natural light. Other amenities include a new kitchenette in the basement for Passover holiday cooking, a new study area off of the Living Room, and provisions in the back yard for a Succah, the temporary wooden structure built annually for the holiday of Sukkoth.

Project Team: Terrence Schroeder
Completed: 2002