A moderately-scaled 1,800 square foot addition to an existing two-story home became an opportunity for CDA&I to merge shelter with site. Located in suburban Chestnut Hill adjacent to the historic Fairmount Park Wissahickon Watershed, the house’s 1.2 acre wooded site was its greatest asset. The client’s program required an office, studio, and a two-story year-round porch to face an expanded terrace and pool. These requests for personal spaces in which to contemplate the surrounding landscape evolved into a study of nature. Natural building and finish materials along with walls of glass erase the boundaries between indoors and outdoors. At its essence, the addition is four rooms with a view, wrapped around a hearth reaching to the treetops; terrace becomes porch and window becomes sky.

Construction consists of a masonry foundation, lightweight steel and wood framing, and structural Honduran mahogany windows and doors. The exterior of the addition and ceilings of the porch are clad in natural cedar. Interior floors are of bamboo, while the flagstone porch floor extends into the landscape to become the new pool terrace. The public side of the house is heavily landscaped with earth berms and perennials to obscure views of passersby while maximizing residents’ views of their property.