K Street Addition

This CMU and wood-framed addition to the rear of a brick row house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington DC is just 490 square feet. The 8.5' x 19.5' footprint was the minimum needed to put a galley kitchen across the back of the house.

The previous owners of the three bedroom, 1200 square foot home had built a one-story un-insulated addition on top of the existing deck. This structure was demolished and the crawlspace underneath dug out in order to add a basement workshop and bicycle storage space under the new two-story addition. The second floor of the addition, which can only be accessed through the bedroom, includes a master closet and master bath. The focus on function and storage in the addition frees up the main house to be a more flexible and comfortable living space.

Minimal work was done to the original 1909 structure and the addition can only be accessed through existing openings in the masonry wall that separates the addition from the original house. Reveals are used at the doorways to create a clear division between the old and the new, but at two existing window openings the modern aesthetic of the addition starts to creep through into the rest of the house - like the addition is an appendage clinging to the original structure. Triple-glazed windows across the width of the new rear façade bring an abundance of north light through these original openings into the living areas.