Reduce Screen - Photos & Ideas

This residence was a complete gut renovation of a 4-story row house in Park Slope, and included a new rear extension and penthouse addition. The owners wished to create a warm, family home using a modern language that would act as a clean canvas to feature rich textiles and items from their world travels. As with most Brooklyn row houses, the existing house suffered from a lack of natural light and connection to exterior spaces, an issue that Principal Brendan Coburn is acutely aware of from his experience re-imagining historic structures in the New York area. The resulting architecture is designed around moments featuring natural light and views to the exterior, of both the private garden and the sky, throughout the house, and a stripped-down language of detailing and finishes allows for the concept of the modern-natural to shine. Upon entering the home, the kitchen and dining space draw you in with views beyond through the large glazed opening at the rear of the house. An extension was built to allow for a large sunken living room that provides a family gathering space connected to the kitchen and dining room, but remains distinctly separate, with a strong visual connection to the rear garden. The open sculptural stair tower was designed to function like that of a traditional row house stair, but with a smaller footprint. By extending it up past the original roof level into the new penthouse, the stair becomes an atmospheric shaft for the spaces surrounding the core. All types of weather – sunshine, rain, lightning, can be sensed throughout the home through this unifying vertical environment. The stair space also strives to foster family communication, making open living spaces visible between floors. At the upper-most level, a free-form bench sits suspended over the stair, just by the new roof deck, which provides at-ease entertaining. Oak was used throughout the home as a unifying material element. As one travels upwards within the house, the oak finishes are bleached to further degrees as a nod to how light enters the home. The owners worked with CWB to add their own personality to the project. The meter of a white oak and blackened steel stair screen was designed by the family to read “I love you” in Morse Code, and tile was selected throughout to reference places that hold special significance to the family. To support the owners’ comfort, the architectural design engages passive house technologies to reduce energy use, while increasing air quality within the home – a strategy which aims to respect the environment while providing a refuge from the harsh elements of urban living. This project was published by Wendy Goodman as her Space of the Week, part of New York Magazine’s Design Hunting on The Cut. Photography by Kevin Kunstadt

Lubberland's Edge

Kaplan Thompson Architects

Context Norbert and Robin had dreamed of retiring in a Passive House-certified home overlooking the Lubberland Creek Preserve in Southeastern New Hampshire, and they’d done their homework. They were interested in using four integrated Zehnder America (www.zehnderamerica.com) technologies to make the 1,900 square foot home extremely energy efficient. They didn’t miss any opportunity to innovate or raise the bar on sustainable design. Our goals were focused on guaranteeing their comfort in every season, saving them money on a fixed income, and reducing the home’s overall impact on the environment as much as possible. Response The home faces directly south and captures sunlight all winter under tall and vaulted ceilings and a continuous band of slim-lined, Italian triple-pane windows and doors that provide gorgeous views of the wild preserve. A second-story office nook and clerestory provide even deeper views, with a little more privacy. Zehnder, which previously sold its innovative products only in Europe, took on the project as a test house. We designed around Zehnder’s vent-based systems, including a geothermal heat loop that heats and cools incoming air, a heat pump cooling system, electric towel-warmer radiators in the bathrooms, and a highly efficient energy recovery ventilator, which recycles heat and minimizes the need for air conditioning. The house effectively has no conventional heating system—and doesn’t need it. We also looked for efficiencies and smart solutions everywhere, from the lights to the windows to the insulation. The kitchen exhaust hood eliminates, cleans, and recirculates cooking fumes in the home’s unique kitchen, custom-designed to match the ways Norbert likes to prepare meals. There are several countertop heights so they can prep and clean comfortably, and the eat-in kitchen also has two seating heights so people can sit and socialize while they’re working on dinner. An adjacent screened porch greets guests and opens to the view. A roof-mounted solar system helps to ensure that the home generates more energy than it consumes—helped by features such as a heat pump water heater, superinsulation, LED lights and a polished concrete floor that helps regulate indoor temperatures.

Elegant Lighting and Shading

Embryo Design Group

Transform your family room effortlessly depending on whether you want to relax, play games, read, or watch TV together. Unclutter the coffee table and reduce confusion with the simplicity of a single remote the entire family can use to control everything: TV, music, streaming content, DVD player, lights, shades and temperature. Home entertainment equipment can be concealed so you only see and hear it when you want to and your family room keeps the sense of style you desire.

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Lubberland’s Edge

Kaplan Thompson Architects

Westchester Waterfront

Amanda Martocchio Architecture

Photo credit Michael Moran. The design for this client’s “dream house on the water” capitalizes on every opportunity to incorporate views of the Long Island Sound within the home. The placement and expanse of the fir windows and sliding doors underscore the water’s proximity. The interior gathering space spills out onto the raised outdoor deck and lap pool overlooking the seawall. Reducing the house’s carbon footprint is another priority, accomplished by generating renewable energy on site. The precise angle of the house on the property is calculated for optimal solar energy production by the rooftop photovoltaic panels and a geothermal system installed under the driveway provides heating and cooling for the house. Due to the fact that the site is located on a floodplain, the ground floor of the house is raised and no basement is allowed. This presents a challenge in terms of carving out enough storage space in the main house that one might normally relegate to a basement. Rooms are efficiently sized and serve multiple functions and storage is built-in wherever possible.

Custom Wine Cellars Built By The WIne Square

The Wine Square | Wine Cellars & Cooling Units

Whisper-quiet cellar cooling unit The compressor-free mechanism makes this wine cooling system whisper-quiet. Generating only 23dBA, the Cube° emits as little noise as an office computer. No moving parts are required since cooling is simply achieved through the movement of electrons, resulting in a soundless wine cellar cooling system. Ultra-silent fans located inside and outside the wine cellar are used for highly efficient thermal exchange. They represent the system’s single source of the noise. With a simple touch of the screen, the velocity of the fan may be modified thus reducing the unit’s sound level. The Cube° now makes it possible to install your wine cellar virtually anywhere, whether in a condo, an apartment or in a space where having a noisy unit is simply out of the question.

Accessory Dwelling Unit and Outdoor Living Spaces | Silvercreek

Brad Cox, Architect, Inc.

The outdoor kitchen is tucked into the area created by the main house and the new attached Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU). A generous pergola features adjustable louvers, outdoor fans, outdoor heaters, and a screen that lowers at the touch of a button to reduce glare from the setting sun.