Alexander Farm House Addition

The client for this house addition approached the architect with a request for a few practical needs but with a desire to “complete a 250 year evolutionary process with a distinctive final design.” Functionally, the new structure was to link the two ends of an awkward “L” shaped plan as well as provide a screen from winter winds. Inside, the addition was to contain a pantry storage area and potting room on the first floor and a new bedroom and bath on the second floor.

As realized the design scheme achieves these simple goals and much more. Intended as a reflection on the nature of the existing thick-walled stone house, the addition celebrates the opposition of frame versus bearing wall construction. A new masonry wall is wrapped around the corner foundation of the house, carving into the ground and giving access to a previously unused vaulted root cellar.

Bearing on and around this masonry core are heavy timbers retrieved from an adjacent barn that free the exterior walls structurally to be opened in multiple configurations. A spa was relocated and inserted into an exterior room with a sliding wall that further explodes the building’s container.