The New and Old House / Julian King Architect

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Emblematic of the state of the house, a vine had grown into the basement through a gap between the concrete block foundation and the wood sill plate, thriving in front of a small window. It was so absurd, it was the genesis of an idea.One steps outside of the old house onto a glass floor, into this skylit gap, conceived of as a version of the Japanese engawa—not quite inside or outside—where trees grow out of concealed planters, like that stubborn vine in the basement. Upon entering the new bedroom, one is immersed in the surrounding trees under an expansive curved skylight whose shape echoes their curving branches.In the end, it speaks to issues raised when renovating and adding to an old house, (what is new, and what is old?), and juxtaposing an addition that embodies contemporary ideas of living with nature; (the surrounding trees and sky inexorably intertwined with the design), alongside an almost archetypal image of the old paradigm—a square gabled structure (the proportions of a corn crib barn)—of us against the elements, reveals overlapping truths. What is old is new again so to speak.The house was rebuilt into a three-bedroom, two-bath house, with a new home office/playroom, and an extended South wall to make up for sf lost to a new hallway to the addition. Stripping away the applied Dutch colonial trim, and false eaves, and returning the structure to its pure square gabled form, drawing from the history of the area, formerly all farmland, it was clad in reclaimed barn wood siding, in contrast with a "new" sculptural addition, generated by the surrounding trees—twisting around large adjacent pine trees— seemingly causing its side to bulge out under the tree canopy, creating a gap between the "old" and "new".Text description provided by the architects.The project was the renovation of a small broken down little house built in 1926, that by all measures was a "tear down".