A young couple, in anticipation of starting a family, desired a new home that reflects their cultural backgrounds. He is Spanish, and was drawn to black and white minimalism. She is Mexican, and wanted splashes of color in a modern home. Their existing house in the Maryland suburbs was small and dark, and did not take advantage of the views to the green parkway running behind.
The design of Prima, a new fast-casual concept from Michael Schlow, centers on the display of healthy and wholesome Italian offerings in a welcoming atmosphere that evokes the feeling of being served in an “old world” Italian home. Focusing on natural materials and traditional millwork detailing, the design highlights Prima’s cuisine, both in production and display, to deliver a distinct ambiance and an overall cozy guest experience.
This renovation and addition to a 1920’s era brick Cape Cod involved the addition of a second floor, and a thorough-going renovation to the first floor. A landscape and hardscape plan rounded out the remaking of this home.
A central stair core for this ” sustainable saltbox ” was designed, around which the spaces of the house revolve. The heart of this home is the stair space, with places to hang out, see and be seen, and through which light is brought into the home and reflected throughout.
This ground-up modern house will serve as the family home for an “empty nest” couple, and will be adapted to their new lifestyle. It will take the place of a suburban “box” the Owners had lived in for decades. In addition to living spaces, shared office, and in-house gym, the home will be spacious enough for overnight guests to have their own suite. In the future, it will offer temporary residence for grown children, and eventually grandchildren.
The Pier House is perched on a hillside overlooking the Potomac River in southern Maryland. The 130 foot long house is conceived as a pier with seamless transitions between interior and exterior living areas. Elongated decks and walkways offer a variety of panoramic and framed views of the water and landscape beyond. From the street side the house presents itself as a solid volume in contrast to the transparent double height living space facing the river. The recessed lower level and the exposed steel frames over the deck, allow the house to appear to float over the landscape.
This modest renovation resists the current inner-ring suburban trend towards demolition of older, smaller homes in favor of new over-scaled ‘farmhouses.’ The clients, a young family with two small children wanted more space for play and individual bedrooms but expressed a desire not to ‘lose one another’ in a home too vast or impersonal. Their one-story bungalow, a relic of the first wave of suburban development in this area, has been expanded through the careful integration of appropriately scaled additional program and volume. The modest scale of the addition both responds to the client’s programmatic needs and limits the environmental footprint of the proposal. A carport and efficiency apartment on the first floor were removed to make way for a new addition containing a first-floor playroom and a partial second story with side-by-side bedrooms for the children connected through a ‘Jack & Jill’ bathroom as well as a new Master Suite. The family room’s double-height volume binds all of the above and provides access to the garden beyond through a covered porch tucked under the Master Suite. Strategically placed south-facing roof apertures capture and direct daylight deep into the north-facing playroom and porch year-round, reducing the need for artificial lighting. New expansive windows frame views to a mature Japanese maple tree in the yard.
The mid-century modern home was less than two thousand square feet, yet beautifully sited on a densely wooded hill. The property provided an extraordinary amount of privacy and seclusion for a house less than four miles from the District of Columbia. Despite the very limited amount of space for a family of four, the clients purchased the property immediately. Five years later, with their two children rapidly approaching teen-age years, the time had come to look at a house expansion.
The design of this house in St. Michaels, Maryland was greatly influenced by environmental regulations, zoning requirements and restrictive building codes specific to this site. The existing Dutch Colonial Style house, built in 1989, was located within a One-Hundred Foot Buffer Zone on Solitude Creek, a small estuary in this Maryland Eastern Shore town. A recently adopted Floodplain Management Ordinance mandated that no new structures be built within the Buffer Zone, and that all renovated or altered existing structures be updated to meet new zoning, building and environmental code requirements.
Located in Glen Echo, Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC, this new house is sited on a sloping, wooded lot with distant views of the Potomac River.
After three years of use, Kebony celebrates the successful renovation of a century’s old home in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of Washington, DC. Kebony’s Southern Yellow Pine cladding was applied to the old home to enhance its appearance with a contemporary exterior.
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